Darkest hour

Chapter Nine

Light had fallen by the time Shavi and Laura made it back to Edinburgh on the back of a lorry delivering builders' supplies to Leith. The Bone Inspector had long since abandoned them, loping across the fields in the direction of the city, one backward glance of contempt and horror showing them what he felt of their actions.

From more than five miles from the city centre it was obvious something terrible was happening in the Old Town. The sky was filled with flashes and rumbles and as they drew closer they could see the wintry clouds that obscured the area were churning as if violent winds were gusting in that one spot.

"What do you reckon?" Laura said as they stood on the pavement where the driver had dropped them off.

Shavi could tell from her voice she feared the worst. "We will see when we get closer."

"We're going in there, then?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Do you think the others will be all right?"

"I do not know."

"That's him, isn't it? That freak?"

Shavi said nothing. He felt complicit in the awful things that were happening, were bound to happen. If he had listened to Laura's doubts, if he had not been so driven in his desire to accomplish their mission, the mad god might not now be loose. Perhaps Maponus had been subtly influencing him, drawing him in until his free will was compromised, but that was not enough of an excuse. His mind was strong; he could have resisted.

"Come on." He walked away from Lothian Road into Bread Street. Shivering in their light summer clothes, they hadn't gone far through the shadowed, twisty-tunny streets before they noticed a building which had crumbled into a pile of rubble, as if it had been hit by a bomb.

Shavi ran forward to inspect the wreckage, then noticed a curious sight. It took a second or two before it dawned on him what he was seeing. "Look here," he said as Laura joined him.

She followed his pointing finger over the debris and saw another crumpled building beyond it, and more beyond that. A swathe had been cut through the city to the outskirts. She turned a hundred and eighty degrees and realised the path continued in the opposite direction to the heart of the Old Town. They looked at each other, but couldn't think of any way to express the thoughts that were colliding in their heads. After a moment of silent contemplation they scrambled across the bricks, stone and tiles towards the Royal Mile.

In the next street they found the body of an old man who had obviously refused to abandon his home during the great evacuation. It wasn't simply crushed by the housefall; it had been lovingly rendered into its component parts. The head was missing, but there was a fine red dew across an arc of virginal snow. Shavi and Laura both blanched.

"We're going to burn for this," she said.

They could see the battle raging through the gap in the buildings long before they clambered up on to the Royal Mile. It was furious in its intensity: a clattering of light and dark, summer and winter, two different aspects of hell; Shavi and Laura could barely look at it. Maponus' beautiful face was contorted by an expression of such overwhelming hatred it made their blood run cold. His eyes were ranging wild, his fingers flexing, unflexing, as the energy or whatever it was rolled off him. Sometimes his attention wavered and he would let off a venomous blast at one of the abandoned buildings nearby, as if his pent-up hatred was for everything in existence. But then the Cailleach Bheur would strike again in her coldly emotionless way and his skittering attention would return to her.

At that moment the crone seemed less human than ever; her features had dissolved into the sucking darkness of the void, her limbs were black and angular like the branches of a wind-blasted tree on a wintry heath. Her power was awesome to experience; even at a distance they could feel the cold like knives in their skin. The way the blue illumination shimmered drove Laura's mind back to the club, as the flashing lights had been refracted then obscured by the hag's relentless ice. For the first time she truly realised how close to death she had come. Before the power of these old gods, they were nothing. She wiped a stray tear away hurriedly before Shavi had a chance to see it.

They scurried for cover behind a tumbled-down wall, their breath clouding in the cold air. "What's going to happen if he gets by her?" she asked.

"At the moment they seem fairly well matched-"

"But sooner or later-"

"We put our faith in the others. In Church and the blue fire." It was the first time she had heard an edge to his voice.

"What about Veitch?" They both looked into the depths of the thick mist that shrouded the castle.

"We should head to the rendezvous point. Just in case."

Laura snorted derisively. "Is it me, or is this a head in the sand situation? You know, I hope one of us bastards has a Plan B. Otherwise I'd say, in our fine tradition, we've made things even worse." Shavi was already departing. "Don't walk away, you bastard! If that thing we set free gets away from here, we're going to be knee-deep in killing fields."

He turned slowly; his eyes were brimming. "I know," he said quietly. And then he was moving away into the night once more and she had no option but to follow him.

Veitch could barely control his shivering as he progressed along the freezing, gloomy tunnels. The torches on the walls were too far apart to give him any comfort, but at least he didn't encounter any Fomorii guards. That unnerved him even more, because he knew it was only a matter of time-he would have expected the place to be swarming with them. Were they all hiding to lure him in there so they could sweep down to tear him apart? He drove that thought out quickly.

The entire place was a maze. All the tunnels looked the same, all were filled with the foul stench of spoiled meat cooking. Roughly constructed wooden doors were occasionally spaced on both sides. He had tried some of them tentatively, but they had all been locked. In the end he had been forced to hiss Ruth's name, expecting to be answered by a Fomorii roar, but there had been no response from any.

In a way he almost wished he would be confronted by something; that would be better than the unbearable tension of expecting an encounter around every corner, of constantly straining to hear footsteps approaching from behind.

When the side tunnel loomed out of the dark it came as a shock. Its surround was ornately carved with writhing things and disturbing twisted shapes; over the top there was a stone face so unbearably hideous Veitch had to look away. The cold air currents which swept from its depths suggested it opened on to a large space. As he took a few steps in, trailing one hand along the wall for support, he picked up a strange, deep bass rumble like heavy trucks rolling; it made his stomach curdle. A few paces later and he recognised voices, scores, perhaps hundreds of Fomorii, but instead of the chaotic jumble of their usual dialect, it was controlled, two conflicted notes repeated over and over again. They were singing.

In a strange way, that was worse than anything he could have anticipated. There was something about that sound that made him want to flee back to the lights of the New Town, but he forced himself to press on. By the time he emerged from the tunnel, he was shaking uncontrollably, his body once again covered in sweat. He was at the top of a flight of rudely carved stairs leading down into a large chamber. And the room was filled with Fomorii. He had been right: hundreds of them. The sum of their presence was so terrible the bile surged into his mouth and he had to shuffle back to retch where he would not be seen. When he looked down into the chamber again, his vision became liquid; he couldn't fix on their forms and for an instant he was convinced there was just one beast down there, enormous and black and filthy with all the evil of existence.

He averted his gaze as his eyes swam, then they fell on what appeared to be a raised dais at the far end, flanked by two flaming braziers. On the centre was Calatin; the corrupt half-breed had his arms raised in some act of worship. When he dropped them, the intolerable singing stopped on one drawn-out note which slowly faded into the dark. Then he began to speak animatedly in the barks and shrieks of the Fomorii dialect. Veitch couldn't bear any more, but just as he began to retreat he glimpsed something in the shadows beyond Calatin: an enormous Fomorii dressed in black battle armour and resembling some giant insect.

Back in the main tunnel, he fought to control his nausea and spinning head. He couldn't work out what he had witnessed-a rallying of the troops? A prayer session? — but it had left him thoroughly disquieted. There was no point wasting time considering it. He returned to his mission with a renewed vigour born of dread.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost walked straight into a Fomorii guard as he rounded a corner. At the last minute he threw himself back, praying he hadn't been seen. The guard had been at the end of a tunnel which was reached down a short flight of steps. Veitch had only glimpsed him, but he had been alerted by a buzzing in his head and the now-familiar sickening in his stomach; it could have been instinct, but it was more as if the Fomorii existed on some level beyond the corporeal, as if they were a foul gas he could smell or a discordant sound constantly reverberating. But it was more than both those things; the creatures offended some fundamental, instinctive part of him.

Peeking round the corner as much as he could dare, he watched the dense area of blackness and the suggestion of a shape at the heart of it. The creature was so big and threatening, its position in the tunnel was almost impregnable; a full-frontal attack would undoubtedly be suicide. He could sneak by, continue exploring the tunnels, but a guard suggested the first site of importance he had come across. He gnawed on a fingernail, desperately urging himself to make the right decision, at the same time aware that he had never made the right decision in his life.

Church and Tom scrabbled away at the rocks that blocked the tunnel until their fingers and knuckles bled, but eventually they had cleared a large enough path to crawl through. It was warmer on the other side and the air smelled of lemon and iron. The breathing sound that had first alerted Church was now so loud it made their ears ring.

Tentatively, he advanced down the tunnel. More rubble crunched underfoot and the walls were cracked and broken open; there were holes so big he could put his hand through them.

"We must be right in the heart of Arthur's Seat now," he said, suddenly claustrophobic at the weight of rock lying above his head.

"You would think," Tom replied.

"You have a remarkable knack of sounding superficially like you agree with me while at the same time suggesting I'm completely wrong and an idiot into the bargain."

"It's a skill. I've had centuries to perfect it."

Church suddenly noticed an unusual texture on the rock that lay at the end of one of the fissures in the wall. Squinting, he could just make out a strange diamond pattern. "That's odd." Cautiously he reached in and ran his fingers over the surface; it was rough and cool to the touch, but the pattern was certainly regular.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed, snatching his hand back.

Tom was instantly at his side. "What is it?"

"It moved! No, the rock didn't move, but something just beneath the surface of it did. It was like… It was like…" He blanched.

"What?" Tom stressed.

Church leaned forward and peered into the fissure, shaking his head.

"Like what?" Tom repeated. There was an irritated edge to his voice.

"Like… Like muscles moving beneath skin." He swallowed, moved to another fissure further along the wall. Bending down, he peered into it, then hesitantly held his hand over the opening, wondering if he dared. Slowly he reached in, all the time watching where his fingers were going.

"Oh my God!" This time he threw himself back, shaking his hand in the air in disgust. The movement had been greater, something seemed to roll up. In the dark of the fissure he could see something red glinting. He crept forward. "Oh my God"-a whisper this time. The red glowed brighter, shifted slightly.

"What is it?" Tom hissed.

"An eye." Church swallowed, repulsed. "I touched an eye and it opened."

Suddenly there was a tremendous rumbling deep in the rock and the tremors rippled out so powerfully it threw them off their feet. Showers of dust fell from the ceiling, choking them, blinding them, as the wall cracked and finally crumbled.

"Get down!" Church threw himself over Tom to protect him. But the ceiling held steady and only a few tiny rocks from the wall bounced across his back. When he eventually felt safe enough to look up, coughing and spluttering, he instantly realised what the unnerving sound had been.

On the other side of where the wall had been lay a long, sinuous figure, its muscles and tendons shifting under the scaled skin that reflected the faint light in bronze and verdigris with a touch of gold. The Fabulous Beast breathed in and out, regularly, peacefully, moving gently in its deep sleep, but its bulk was so big even the slightest tremble of its lithe body sent tremors through the rock. Church couldn't even get a sense of its true size, for much of it was hidden under the fallen rock; even that had not disturbed it.

He took a step forward, overcome by the sudden wonder of what he was seeing.

"You feel it?" Tom was watching him curiously.

"What?"

"An affinity. You may not be of the same blood, but you are of the same spirit."

And he did feel it, tingling in his fingers, up his spine, singing in the chambers of his head; he felt like a tuning fork ringing in harmony with the sleeping beast. "A Brother of Dragons," he muttered.

"Your heritage." Tom moved in next to him, clapped a grounding hand on his shoulder. "You are learning, growing. It's been a slow process, but you're getting there."

"Why hasn't it woken?"

"It hasn't woken for a long, long time. It is kin to the old one that lies beneath Avebury, younger, but only just. This place was once almost as potent a source of the blue fire as Avebury, but for some reason the energy dried up quicker here once the people turned away from the spirit."

"And the Fabulous Beast went into hibernation?"

"Hibernation? I suppose that's one way of looking at it. It is detached from the world and everything in it."

Church dropped to his haunches to examine the creature's flank. "It's magnificent… beautiful-"

"And dangerous. Make no mistake, the Fabulous Beasts are not pets. They are wild and untamed, a force of nature."

Church stood up, sighing. "Where did they come from? They don't fit in with how we thought the world operated."

"They fit in with the way the world should be, and once was."

"What are we supposed to do now?" Church asked, looking down the steep slope of tunnel where it disappeared into the gloom. "I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to get the earth energy moving again. And to be honest, even if we could find a way, I still don't see how it's supposed to help us."

Tom set off walking, his voice floating back ethereally. "Perhaps it won't help us. But healing the wounded land, perhaps, is a mission that exceeds opposition to the Fomorii. Your prime mission."

"If Balor returns, there won't be a land left to heal," Church said sourly, trying to keep up.

The tunnel pitched downwards steeply until there were points when Church had to grab hold of the walls to stop himself slipping out of control. The air grew colder and dustier and at times he felt the blast of strong air currents, although he couldn't begin to guess where they were coming from. As they descended they seemed to move into an oppressive doom-filled atmosphere; their sporadic conversation dried up accordingly, so the only sound was the soft tramp of their feet.

The air currents grew worryingly stronger until gusts surged up the tunnel, knocking them against the walls. It was almost as if they were coming to the edge of a cliff. Church had a sudden vision of the vast underground sea inJourney to the Centre of the Earth. And then the tunnel ended abruptly and the the source of the wind became clear.

They were standing on a small ledge which ran around a yawning hole so big they couldn't see the other side. It plunged away from their feet in a dizzying drop into darkness, but the rush of air and odd, disturbing echoes suggested it was very deep indeed. It may well have gone down forever. Church closed his eyes and threw himself backwards into the tunnel mouth as a rush of vertigo made his head spin.

"Here we are," Tom said. "The well of fire."

Church eventually found the strength to creep forward on his hands and knees to peer over the edge into the abyss. The wind rushed up, buffeting his face, tugging at his hair. His head reeled as he fought the sensation that he was being sucked over the lip.

"There are spirit wells like this all over the country, all across the world." Tom's voice floated distantly behind him; Church felt like the darkness was swallowing him whole. "Few as mighty as this, however," Tom continued. "And fewer still that are actually alight."

Church sat back, pressing himself firmly against the rock wall. "What am I doing here? It's a dirty, big hole in the ground. This is hopeless."

"Hopeless?" Tom said. "Haven't you learned anything yet?"

"You're great at tossing out cryptic advice. Why don't you say something useful for a change-tell me what I'm supposed to do."

"Sort it out yourself," Tom snapped. "You're the one who's supposed to be learning."

Church cursed under his breath and returned his attention to the abyss. He peered into it for inspiration, but nothing came. Slowly his mood dipped. Was he going to fail again? Then thoughts surfaced like bubbles on that black, oily pool. This was a source of the blue fire. It wasn't truly a hole in the earth; they weren't really under Arthur's Seat. It was a place between worlds, beyond reality, like Otherworld. Perhaps it was Otherworld, but somehow he doubted it; it was more likely the well was a channel through to wherever the blue fire originated. He looked up at Tom who was standing with his hands behind his back, as if on a stroll through the park. "Where does that go?" he said, pointing into the well.

Tom smiled like a teacher whose favoured pupil had just made a great leap of logic. "Where do you think it goes?"

Church cursed again and waved him away; answering questions with questions was Tom's favourite type of conversation and over the months it had not diminished in irritation factor.

Church pondered some more; gradually his thoughts seemed to come together. What was the nature of the blue fire? That was obvious, if everything Tom had said was true: it was the essence of the spirit. And the blue fire had dried up here and stagnated across the land, once the people had turned away from believing.

"Can we ignite it again… can we draw back the blue fire… by doing…" The words failed him and he held up his hands in irritation. Then: "An act that touches the spirit, that resonates in that plane."

Tom nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps. In this new world a leap of faith can have as far-reaching an effect as a leap of logic. Will it work? Perhaps, if you want it enough."

The strain of the responsibility began to seep into Church's shoulders. He wanted out of it, back to the life he once knew, but there was no hope of that, ever again. He closed his eyes, feeling his emotions and thoughts wash over him, then he dipped into his pocket and pulled out the locket given to him by the young Marianne.

"This saved my life." He held it up so it spun gently. "A cheap piece of jewellery with a cut-out magazine photo of Princess Diana stuffed inside. Meaningless, really. And then suddenly infused with meaning and power. Why? Because a little girl put her heart and soul and dreams into it? It's like some stupid fairy story."

"We now live in a time of myth," Tom began quietly, "where archetypes live and speak with a power that can bend reality, where thoughts take shape. If something is wished to have meaning, then it will have power. Things were like that before the change, but the power was muted. Myth has always shaped us, you know that. You can see it in Diana's life-the years of suffering, the sacrificial death, the mourning that became almost worship. The resonances and coincidences shout out loudly, so much so that you would not believe them. Diana, the name of the moon goddess, the goddess of hunting and woodlands and fertility, worshipped by women. Which Diana are we talking about?" He shrugged. "There have always been powers moving behind the scenes, ordering our lives. We call them by different names, trying to make sense of them, but we never will. The only way to proceed with any equanimity is to accept that we exist at the heart of magic and mystery and nothing will be revealed, certainly not before death, and perhaps not even after. Enjoy the moment, go with the flow-"

"And all the other hippie values." Church shook his head. "I should make this locket my offering in the hope that somehow its power, its spirit, can set things in motion. But that girl, she changed my life in just one meeting. She was a kid, but she was everything I wasn't. Brave in the face of death, positive, filled with some kind of faith. It was magical to see."

"And the name connection reminds you of your girlfriend," Tom said pointedly.

Church nodded slowly. "Yes, they're both tied up in my mind. I can't see where one ends and the other begins. With Marianne's spirit still trapped, I don't know if I can give this up. It feels like my only connection with her. Maybe I'm supposed to have it to free her."

He looked at Tom for some kind of support and guidance, but the face he saw was impassive and unreadable.

"I know what you're thinking," Church continued. "That I screwed everything up before Beltane because I was so wrapped up in my own problems and Marianne. I promised myself I'd shake all that, but some things run too deep." He looked back at the locket, spinning gently, catching the light like a tiny star. "I wish I was better at this."

A noise echoed along the tunnel behind them, just a tiny sound, but in the acoustics of the well chamber it sounded like thunder; they both snapped alert immediately. Breath held tightly, eyes staring unblinkingly up the tunnel, they waited. For a moment there was nothing. And then another sound, a crunch of a foot on the grimy tunnel floor, but so faint it suggested whoever was there was walking cautiously, so as not to be discovered. That alone sent uneasy signals running through them.

"Someone's coming," Church whispered redundantly. "Who else could be in here?"

"No one," Tom replied. "Unless we were followed."

Church looked around hastily; the tunnel was the only way out. "This isn't the best place to get caught. I wish Veitch was here."

Tom surveyed the thin ledge. "We could edge around to the shadows on the other side." His voice was barely audible.

Church glanced into the deep dark of the well and felt his head spin again. "Or we could greet them here with open arms. It might be nothing… it might be somebody…" His voice faded; he was being stupid. The chances were, in that place, at that time, whatever was coming was a threat. He looked at the ledge and winced. °I don't know if I can do it."

"And the alternative is?" Tom said, irritatedly. He grabbed Church's arm to try to drag him, but Church shook him off so violently they both almost fell into the well.

"Jesus!" Church hissed. "Leave me alone! You're going to kill us both!"

"You are if you make us stay here." Tom forced himself to stay calm. "Face the wall. Feel with your feet and don't look down."

"That's easy for you to say!" But Tom was already inching his way along the ledge. Church froze. The path seemed unbearably thin; the tip of Tom's heels hung over the drop. Sweat grew chill down his back and on his forehead.

Then he glanced up the tunnel and saw something which cut through his fear with a greater terror. A glint of yellow, gone, then yellow again, something small and insignificant, but he knew instinctively what it was. The thing he had glimpsed earlier in the cavern that had the shape of a great wolf, but was not a wolf; the terrible cutter of fingers that had taken Ruth. He had thought it another hallucination, or a glimpse across time and space caused by the bizarre rules of the whirlpool cavern, but it had really been there. And now it was coming for them.

And still he hesitated. The magnetic pull of the well's vertiginous depths was almost unbearable. The more visceral danger of what was approaching down the tunnel stabbed him with sharp knives. But if he could find his rational mind somewhere among his primal fears, he knew what the only route could be.

Feeling he was saying goodbye to his life, he put his first foot on the ledge. Slowly he edged round the lip of the immense hole, feeling his heart beat so loudly in his ears he thought he was going to go deaf. His view alternated between the backs of his eyelids and the cold, dark rock of the cavern wall which repeatedly brushed the tip of his nose. Every sensation was heightened, almost too painful to bear. He felt sick. Every few seconds his mind told him he was going to die; he couldn't shake the feeling he was going to flip over backwards.

More than anything he wanted to glance back to the tunnel mouth; he could hear the rough breathing of the thing approaching, the scraping of its feet on the rock; it was making no attempt to hide itself now. But he couldn't bring himself to look, so all he was left with was the approaching noise and the feeling that he wasn't moving fast enough, that it would follow him on to the ledge, and then he truly would be trapped.

Suddenly his left shoulder hit a body. It was Tom, who had stopped, but the shock of it when he was lost in his thoughts broke his concentration and he made a startled sound. And then he was moving slowly away from the rock wall, and although he held his muscles rigid, it was not enough to drive him back. He strained to grip the wall, but it was moving away. He was going over.

Tom's arm came from nowhere and slammed between his shoulder blades, propelling him back upright. The strangled gasp that rushed from his throat was a mixture of relief and terror.

"Hush." Tom's voice was so low it was almost a faint exhalation, which Church had to strain to hear.

"Why did you stop?" he responded in kind.

"If you could tear your eyes away from the rock you'd realise we can't see the tunnel any more. Which means it can't see us. Did you see what it was?"

Church swallowed, composed himself, repeated the mantra in his head: Don't look down! But there they were, hanging over an abyss, trying to have a normal conversation; it was madness. "I got a glimpse… the eyes…" His mouth was too dry; he swallowed again. "It's whatever took Ruth, what Laura thought was a giant wolf. And I saw it that way too, in the big cavern. But it's not. I know… somehow, I know… that it's human."

"Sometimes, when the old gods have tampered with someone, it's hard to get a handle on them," Tom mused. "It screws up the mind's perceptions. It's like they've changed in some fundamental way and the mind is struggling to make sense of all the confusing signals so it imposes an image on it. The closest one that seems to fit. But it's a lie, a desperate lie, to preserve sanity."

"Then what does it really look like?" Tom's use of the word tampered made Church shiver. He remembered the age-old man's account of his suffering at the hands of the Tuatha De Danann Queen, when he had been taken apart and put back together again, for little more than sport. Fragile Creatures the Danann called them. Frail. Easily broken. Never put back quite right again.

The conversation died in the face of the threat. And so they listened to sounds that really did seem to issue from an animal, but then, eerily, intermingled with a guttural, warped human voice. It was muttering to itself. For a second they thought it might retreat up the tunnel, but after a moment's lull the breathing began to draw closer and they heard the scrape of a foot on the ledge, the click of nails on the cavern wall.

And then Church did tear his eyes away from the wall to stare wide-eyed into Tom's face. Tom moved off with the fast, supple movements of a man who had already experienced things worse than death. Church tried to keep up, but every muscle ached from forcing to keep himself close to the wall, and with movement his head had started spinning again. His throat seemed pencil-thin; he couldn't suck in enough air. And behind them the pursuer was drawing closer. He wondered if they could travel all around the well and head back up the tunnel to lose their pursuer in the cavern.

His foot slipped off the ledge and he had to grip on to the wall so tightly he was sure the delicate skin under the tips of his nails was bleeding. He was moving too fast, making stupid mistakes. But whatever was behind was relentless. He moved on.

And the well sucked at him again, sucked and inhaled and wished him off the ledge. And only a gossamer-thin wish was holding him on.

How much further? he wondered. It was impossible to tell how far around the arc they had travelled.

And then he heard the sound behind him, just a heavy breath, but in it a dark, malevolent triumph. He glanced to his right and saw, suspended in the black, the cold, yellow eyes, staring at him.

Their awful pull was destabilising. He tried to move away faster, but his foot slipped again and this time he went down on one knee. Off-balance, he was scrambling at the wall, shifting his weight wildly, trying to throw himself forward, shifting to the side, having to overcompensate, and then his knee was slipping off the ledge too, and the weight of the well was dragging him down.

For an instant time seemed to hang, pictures dropped from a hand, caught in midair. He looked up, saw Tom's face ahead of him frozen in horror. Realised some noise was coming from his mouth that made no sense. Felt his weight go completely over the edge. Looked down, saw nothing but dark, dark, dark, pulling him in. Falling.

At the last moment he reached out and slammed both hands on the ledge; his body swung hard against the wall, winding him. Tendons strained. His shoulders felt like they were going to explode. His fingers blazed with fire, seemed to be snapping. And his heels kicked wildly over nothing at all.

"Tom," he croaked.

Tom looked at him, then slowly up at their pursuer. The ragged breath was so close now, Church swore it was almost above him.

"Tom," he said again. Then: "Go on. You can't help me."

There was a look in Tom's eye as if all the repressed emotion in his body had come rushing to the surface, of more than tears, more than despair. But he remained, caught.

Church closed his eyes, knew he didn't have long. If the drop didn't get him, the Big Bad Wolf would. This was it. The end. He thought of Marianne and Marianne and Laura and Ruth and Niamh and all his new friends and his old ones and his family, and then he removed one hand from the ledge and somehow, through force of will, managed to keep hanging. For just an instant longer, his mind sparked.

The free hand swept into his pocket and pulled out the locket.

"I wish, I wish…" he whispered, but there were too many tears in his eyes.

And then he let it go, and it went spiralling down, the last star disappearing into the inky void.

A second later he joined it. His stomach shot up to his neck, his brain felt like it was twisting in his skull, and the air was rushing around him and somewhere Tom was yelling and…

Ruth had tried not to weep throughout all her ordeal and she had survived until that moment when she remembered the meal she had had with Church at Wodka in London before the whole mess had truly started. For some reason that triggered the tears and she hadn't been able to stop for a good quarter of an hour.

At least she had been provided with a rough bed of sacking and straw. Things seemed to be moving within it, but after the cold floor it seemed like paradise. That small piece of special treatment from creatures without even the slightest shred of humanity disturbed her more than anything; it was as if they were giving her a brief respite to build up her strength before something even more terrible. That brought another flood of tears. The black pearl had almost destroyed her. What could be worse than that? How much more could she take? Sometimes, although she dreaded to consider it, suicide almost seemed an option.

As if in answer to her thoughts, she heard a noise beyond the distant cell door, lost in the overpowering gloom. It was a Fomorii voice, insane and bestial. There were notes in it she had never heard before, so terrifying she clutched at her ears to drive it out, but the tumult continued until it ended in sudden silence. They were coming for her again.

"No more," she pleaded in a broken voice. "There's nothing left in me. I can't take anything else."

She blinked away the tears, felt her head spin with the nauseating noises, waited, waited. There was a sound of metal on stone, some terrible torture instrument being dragged in. Blades, growing slicker, cogs turning, sparking pain that would consume her. The sounds grew closer, right outside the door now.

"Please," she whimpered.

The lock turning. Click; a note of finality. Then slowly, slowly, swinging open. The light flooding in from outside, burning her eyes. And then the unbearable wait. She battened down her emotions, tried to think and feel nothing.

A figure was silhouetted in the flickering torchlight at the top of the flight of stone steps that led from her cell. It didn't make sense. Her head spun, her heart leapt with the rush of a hope she hardly dared accept.

The figure shifted, the torchlight sweeping over its torso, illuminating its face; a disbelieving grin of triumph. Words coming to her across the void between them.

"And the crowd went wild."

Tears, no longer despairing, burned her cheeks. It was Veitch.

"Jesus Christ!" The jubilation on Veitch's face turned to horror when his eyes finally adjusted to the gloom enough to see Ruth huddled on the other side of the cell. It took a second for him to take in her filthy, matted hair, the dirt smeared across her skin, the unclean rag tied around her hand across the stump of her finger, but it was her face that affected him the most; it carried the weight of punishment and suffering to a degree that was painful to see. Yet despite that, at its core there was the defiance and strength he had recognised the first time he met her; diminished certainly, restrained, but still there. She had not been broken.

"Thank you." Her voice sounded delirious.

Veitch threw himself down the stairs and sprinted across the cell, scrubbing at the spots of foul black ichor on his bare skin that burned like nettle sting.

"What's that?" Ruth said weakly, watching his actions; she seemed so detached she was barely conscious.

"Shit that came out of one of the Bastards. Blood, I suppose. Burns like fuck." He knelt down and gripped her shoulders. "Look, I know it's been a nightmare for you, but you've got to pull yourself together till we get out of here. I got in, but I don't know if I can get out again, and we're going to have every Bastard in here on our heels soon."

"You came for me?" She couldn't seem to make sense of what he was saying.

"Couldn't leave you down here, could we?" The way she held her face up to him, slightly puzzled, slightly relieved, filled him with emotions he had never experienced in such an acute form before; there was a sharpness to them that almost made him wince, but a warmth too, and he knew at that moment that this was what he had been searching for all his life. He couldn't bear it if those feelings slipped away from him. "Come on, girl," he said softly. "You and me against the world."

At first he was afraid she wouldn't be able to walk and he'd have to carry her, but after he helped her to her feet she quickly grew steadier and soon she was moving across the cell without any aid. Outside the door she wrinkled her nose at the gruesome mess that smeared the corridor. Black and green slime was everywhere, along with chunks of matter and what looked like the horned, twisted remains of a Fomor; it appeared to have been hacked to pieces. Three crossbow bolts protruded from one part of it she couldn't recognise. Veitch retrieved them quickly and held them in the flame of one of the wall torches to burn the ichor off them.

"You did that?" she said.

Veitch couldn't tell if it was astonishment or horror he heard in her voice. "You can't go in halfhearted. They'll tear you apart." He paused, then added almost apologetically, "I had to disable it with the bolts before I could move in. Probably wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. You know, wouldn't fancy one of them in a fair fight…" He realised he was starting to ramble and caught himself. "Come on."

He attempted to lead them back the way he had come, but the tunnel system was a maze and every turn looked alike. He had the horrible feeling they were going deeper into the heart of the complex. "There was some big hall where they were all praying or something. If I could find that I'd know we were on the right track."

"So we're lost?"

"Blimey, it's not Oxford Street down here!"

"It's okay. I wasn't criticising." Her voice sounded weary; a wave of pain crossed her face.

He instantly felt guilty at bristling. "I just need to get my bearings."

They headed down the tunnel a little further and stopped outside a heavily sealed door. From behind it, they heard the unmistakable sound of birds; it was as if a whole flock had been imprisoned within.

"I've heard that before," Ruth said.

"Want to check it out?"

"Best not."

They both felt oddly uneasy in proximity to the door, even more than the heightened sense of tension they had experienced in their journey from the cell. But before they could decipher the clues presented to them, the very walls of the tunnel reverberated with the crazed sound of a tolling bell. It wasn't how Ruth had heard it before; it was relentless, jarring, and she wanted to clutch at her ears to drive the sound out.

"Shit, we've been rumbled." Veitch recalled the first time he had heard the noise in the abandoned mines under Dartmoor, just before the Fomorii swarmed in pursuit. "Come on!" he said insistently, grabbing her wrist. "We haven't got any time now!"

They hurried onwards, Ruth desperately attempting to keep up, but they hadn't gone far when they heard a rising tide of Fomorii grunts and shrieks approaching them. Veitch cursed under his breath and pivoted, heading back the way they had come. He took the first side tunnel he came to, sighing with relief when the faint slope appeared to go upwards. Yet as they rounded a bend to the right they came up against a stream of fast-approaching Fomorii at the end of a long stretch of tunnel. The sudden roar that erupted from the mass as it surged like oil along the corridor was terrifying.

Veitch spun round again, putting his arm across Ruth's shoulders to propel her forward. "It's like a fucking ant hill." He took another branching tunnel and tried to batten down the cold weight of fear rising in his chest so Ruth wouldn't see it, but he knew they were rapidly running out of options.

This tunnel was sloping up too, but the clamour behind them was increasing in intensity, drawing closer. Even if they made it out of the tunnel, they had to get through the castle before they were safe.

Suddenly Ruth grabbed his arm and hauled him to a halt. "We can't stop!" he snapped.

She was pointing to a trapdoor in the wall they had just passed. It was about four feet off the floor, the size of a domestic oven. Seemingly oblivious to the approaching noise, she pulled herself away from him and wrenched the door open. A cold blast of air surged out of a dark tunnel. "We could hide in there," she said exhaustedly. "We're not getting anywhere running around."

He could tell from her face she was aware of all the thoughts he had been trying to hide from her, but she seemed more determined than scared. He nodded. "Let me go first, though. Just in case…"

He collapsed the arms of the crossbow and boosted himself. Ruth followed immediately behind his boot heels. She pulled the trapdoor shut behind them, plunging them into an all-encompassing darkness. It was freezing cold in the tunnel, and intensely claustrophobic. Veitch had to wriggle to get his shoulders forward; he was uncomfortably aware of the weight of rock pressing down upon his back.

Shivering, they lay as still as they could, until they heard the awful sound of the pursuing Fomorii rushing up the tunnel. Their blood ran cold; it was like the screech of demons surging out of hell, hungry for souls. As the creatures approached the trapdoor, Veitch screwed his eyes tight, listening to the noise, wishing he couldn't hear it, waiting for the flood of light as the trapdoor was pulled open. And then they would be torn from their hiding place, ripped apart in a blood-frenzy of tearing claws and rending jaws. Any second now. He winced, waited.

But the sound carried on, up to the door, past it, and along the tunnel until it dwindled into the distance. "They'll realise they missed us in a minute or two and they'll be back. We have to get out of here," he hissed.

"We can't go out there." Ruth's disembodied voice floated on the air. "They'll be looking everywhere. We don't stand a chance. You'll have to crawl on to see where this tunnel goes."

Witch's heart suddenly went up into his mouth. He inched forward slightly as a test and his shoulders rubbed painfully on the walls. "We'll get stuck," he protested.

"The alternative's going out there and getting eaten alive."

"I prefer that to getting trapped in here and dying slowly." He had a sudden vision of how it would feel, the rock pressing in at him from every side, unable to move backwards or forwards, the rising panic, the sudden clutching insanity at the certain knowledge of one of the worst deaths imaginable. "Anyway," he choked, "it's so small it won't go anywhere."

"Of course it goes somewhere." Ruth's voice had a school teacher snap. "There's a trapdoor on it, for God's sake! They wouldn't put a door on a tunnel that went nowhere."

He couldn't argue with her logic, however much he wanted to, and it was a certainty that there was no refuge for them back in the tunnels. "You better be bleedin' right," he said.

"Just get on with it and stop whining."

"Oi, can't you control that tongue even at death's door?"

"Shut up." She gave his calf a gentle punch; despite her words there was something reassuring and supportive in her manner. Veitch recognised a growing bond, or thought he did, and that was enough to drive him on.

With an effort, he dragged himself forward, shifting the muscles in his back and shoulders until they ached. There wasn't even the faintest glow of ambient light ahead of them, which made him wonder how far the tunnel actually went. And the more they progressed, the more he became aware of the tiny space embedded in the rock, the size of a coffin, barely enough air to breathe. His chest began to burn; he was working himself up to a panic attack.

"How ya doin'?" he called out to deflect his mind. But all that came back was a gasp of assent that suggested Ruth was having as hard a time as he was.

Don't panic, he told himself. There's no way you can back out of this place in a hurry. You'll go fucking mad if you lose it.

And just when he thought he couldn't bear it any more, it got worse. It was the width of the tunnel that had been causing him the most problems, but at least he had been able to crawl on his hands and knees. Now the ceiling was getting lower. He tried to tell himself it was just a by-product of the panic he was holding in stasis, but soon it was impossible to crawl, and it seemed to be getting tighter and tighter.

He sucked in a deep breath, then another, then another, trying to calm himself enough to speak; he couldn't let Ruth see how weak he was. "Bit of a problem here."

"What?" The word was barely a gasp.

"The roof's coming down. I think it just comes together, a dead end. We're going to have to back up."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

He heard tears in her voice; she was running on empty and a failure at this point would destroy her. He couldn't bear to hear that sound again. "Look, I'll give it a bit longer, right? It's not closed up all together." The words felt like pebbles in his throat.

Slowly, on shaking arms, he lowered himself down until he was slithering like a snake. There was a brief moment of relief at the few spare inches above his head, until the ceiling came down so sharply there was only a gap of about seven inches. If he turned his head on its side he could just about keep going. His panic was on the verge of raging out of control; a band of steel was crushing his chest so tightly he was sure he was having a heart attack. He knew if he allowed himself to speak it would turn into a scream, and then he would be scrabbling at the rock until his fingers bled, and kicking and yelling, and then the last bit of thin air that seemed to be in the tunnel would finally go and he would be left choking and dying.

He felt Ruth's hand on the back of his leg, so supportive he almost cried. "You can do it." It was as if she could read his thoughts. There was such belief in her words it snapped him out of the panic. Focusing his mind, he pressed his cheek firmly against the floor and pushed with his toes. He moved forward an inch or two. He tried again, but this time the going was more painful. And then, suddenly, he was wedged. He tried to wrench his head back, but the rough rock of the ceiling only dug into his flesh like the barbs of a harpoon. He couldn't go back.

In the flash of terror he was immobilised.

"Stay calm," Ruth whispered behind him. "You can do it."

Couldn't she see? He started to writhe as he fought for some way to free himself, but any movement backwards only made the situation worse. There was no air at all; however much he sucked in, it felt like only a thin rasp reached his lungs. The rock pressed down on him, crushing harder and harder. Sparks of light started to flash in front of his eyes. He was blacking out; dying.

He didn't know if it was a spasm or some last rational thought crashing through the chaos, but suddenly he gave one final push forward with his toes. It drove him an inch or so. Through the haze he discovered he could move his head a little. He pushed again, and after a tough moment when he thought his shoulders were going to jam, he slipped forward even further. He could barely believe it; the ceiling had started to rise again.

"It's all right!" he yelled with barely concealed relief. "It's getting higher again!"

Scrambling forward, he was soon back on his hands and knees, and although he couldn't turn to help Ruth through, he gave her enough verbal encouragement to bring her past the scariest part.

The blast of cold air was stronger there, and a faint light glowed. "Why's it so cold?" Ruth asked.

"Trust me on this-it's winter up top, summer everywhere else. The whole world's gone crazy. Situation normal."

Veitch moved forward as fast as he could until the tunnel came to a sudden end. He smelled the clear, cold night air, heard distant sounds. "We're through," he said.

"Where are we?" Ruth whispered.

Cautiously, he leaned out of the tunnel. It opened into some tubular, stone structure. There was a drop beneath them into what appeared to be water; he could see the black surface reflecting light from above. Twisting, he looked up into a circle that framed the drifting, white haar, lit by the castle's lights.

"It's a well," he said, retreating back into the tunnel. "Least, I think it is. Right, there are two wells at the castle. One's too small, more like a cistern really. So this must be the other." After the strain of the tunnel crawl, it took a second or two for the details to surface. "The Fore Well. The main water supply a few hundred years ago, but it's out of use now so there shouldn't be too much water in the bottom. Just in case we slip, like. Now if only we can climb out of the bastard-"

"How do you know all this?"

"Did my research, didn't I? I wasn't going to come waltzing into this place without knowing what I'm doing."

"I'm impressed."

He shrugged, but inside he was enjoying her praise. "It opens out on the Upper Ward. When I was up there a while back there weren't any guards in that area, so we could be on to a winner. If we can get past the cover."

"Cover?"

"There's a grille fastened on top to stop all the tourists falling in-"

"Oh, shit," she said, dismal again.

"Hang on, don't start getting negative already. We've come this bleedin' far. Just give me a chance, all right?"

Without waiting for an answer, he dropped in to the water. The icy shock almost made him call out. He was saved only by the fact that he had misjudged the depth. He plunged down beneath the surface and had to kick back up, spluttering and shaking from the cold.

"Are you okay?" Ruth asked worriedly. Her pale face was framed in the dark of the tunnel opening.

"Yeah, but it's like fucking ice." He blew the water out of his nose, treading hard to prevent the weight of the sword and the crossbow pulling him down.

"You need to get out quick before you get hypothermia."

"Thanks for the advice." He dug his numb fingers into the grooves between the stones, braced his back against one side of the well and set his feet against the other. Then, with a tremendous effort, he began to edge himself up. Twice he fell back into the freezing water with a loud splash and a foul curse, but no one came to investigate. The newly discovered steel inside him pulled him through and finally he had made his way to the top. Gripping the grille with his left hand to give him some support, he slid the sword under the area next to the fastening and heaved. It was hard to get leverage from his precarious position and he was afraid that either the sword would snap or the lock would hold fast, but after a moment or two he heard the sound of protesting metal. A second later he was heaving the grille off the well-head and climbing out into the freezing night.

He didn't bother to rest from his exertions. Checking there were no guards in the vicinity, he rushed over to the Great Hall where he remembered seeing some netting in the armoury display. The corpse of the Fomor guard had still not been discovered.

Back at the Fore Well, he lowered the netting so Ruth could tie it round her. Then, bracing himself, he hauled her to the surface. Weakly, she rested against the battlements, looking round anxiously.

"Are you sure it's safe?"

"Not for long."

She brushed a frail hand across her eyes. Veitch winced when he saw the space where her finger should be. "Thank God," she said. "I thought I was going to die in there. I thought I was going mad. How I didn't panic, I don't know." She gulped in a mouthful of air. "I'm babbling now."

He slipped an arm round her shoulder; she didn't flinch. "It's okay," he said.

Her eyes sparkled when she looked up at him; was that a connection he saw? He felt warmth rise up into his cheeks. "You were great," she said. "You were like a rock. I wouldn't have got through it without you."

The irony made him wince, but he couldn't break the illusion. For the first time she thought he was somebody who was worth something, who was capable, decent. But the conflict made him feel like a cheat. Even when he was getting what he wanted, his guilt and self-loathing got in the way. "We've still got a way to go yet. That was the easy bit," he said flippantly.

Before she could answer, her attention was distracted by something in the sky towards the bottom of the Royal Mile. The haar had started to drift away from that area and the black, star-sprinkled sky was clear.

"What is it?" Veitch asked.

"I don't know. I thought I saw something." She scanned the sky uneasily. "There it is again!" she said, pointing. The heavens were fleetingly lit by a strange, blue glow. In it, dark shapes seemed to be moving. "What do you think?"

"I don't know." Veitch had a sudden frisson which he couldn't explain. "But I reckon we need to get to the rendezvous site pronto."

The air was rushing so fast it ripped the breath from Church's mouth; his stomach flipped and twisted. The initial shock and terror was wiped away in a second by the helter-skelter sensations and the adrenalin that surged through him; the whole world seemed to be moving so fast he didn't have a chance to think. Beneath him, above him, all around him was darkness so intense he could have been plunging through space. Some hidden, rational part of him was scanning the shadows for any sign that could prepare him for the terrible moment of impact and it was that which caught the faint glimmer of blue light far, far away in the acheronian tunnel. It resembled a slight rip in black silk and it was growing wider, as if the fabric were rending.

The sight mesmerised him, driving out all other sensations, and his mind suddenly began to churn out notions to fill the vaccuum. It's the blue fire, he thought. Is that the bottom?

But it didn't look like the bottom; the well appeared to carry on past the growing speck of light. It grew wider still, the rate of tear increasing rapidly. The locket did it! he realised.

And at that moment the blue fire suddenly burst through. It was like a geyser rushing up towards him. He had only a split second to marvel at the wonder of it and then he was hit full-force by the eruption of splendour. It knocked all sense from him for a while, and when he finally came round he was hurtling back up the well even faster than he had dropped down; the velocity tore at the muscles of his face, pulled his lips back from his teeth, stole even more of his breath until he thought he was going to black out again. The coruscating energy licked all around him, yet astonishingly it hadn't burned him as he had feared in the instant before it had hit him. Instead he experienced an almost transcendental sense of wellbeing; it felt cool and like honey at the same time.

He couldn't tell if he was hallucinating from the wild sensations, but there seemed to be things moving in the fire all around him, large, dark shapes that twisted and turned sinuously. He almost felt he could hear their alien thoughts whispering in his head, accompanied by an overwhelming sense of freedom and jubilation.

He caught the briefest glimpse of Tom's dazzled face as the energy exploded out of the well and then it rocketed up and curled around the roof, the waves protecting him. He tried to suck in some air, but all he could get were a few gasps. And then he was hurtling along the tunnel, through the cavern, which seemed smaller when lit with the burning blue light, up to where the Fabulous Beast was sleeping. Only it wasn't asleep any longer. Fleetingly he saw its blazing eyes, its mouth roaring, spitting fire, in a tremendous display of exultation, and then it unfolded its wings just as it was caught in the flood.

And then he did black out. When he came to he had the briefest sensation of flying through cold night air and landing in a bone-jarring impact on the mist-damp grass, the wind smashed from his lungs. Finally he sucked in a lungful of air, his head swimming as he stared up at the vast, sparkling arc of the sky, waiting for his thoughts to catch up with the rush of sensation.

When he could, he rolled over and jumped to his feet. Tom was lying in a tangled heap nearby. Church ran over, worried, but the old man stirred and shook himself, muttering some curse under his breath. Smoke was rising from their skin, as if they had been singed by the fire, but they felt no pain. The disorientation was still swamping Church's head as he looked around and recognised they were once more at the foot of Arthur's Seat near the spring.

Tom pulled himself to his feet and instantly grew still. "Look," he said in a voice filled with awe.

Church followed his glance. At first he didn't see it, but when the peculiar perception came on him it was unmissable. Streams of blue fire were running from Arthur's Seat into the Old Town, where they were growing stronger, until they became a burning river heading towards the castle. And all along, tributaries were breaking off, flowing into Edinburgh, out across the country into the dark distance: a magnificent tapestry of blue fire. The land was coming alive.

And overhead, swooping and diving in the currents that followed the energy lines, was the Fabulous Beast. It let forth an enormous blast of fire which showered down among the buildings and in the red glare Church saw it was not alone. Three other, smaller beasts twisted and turned in complex but unmistakably jubilant patterns. And they were all heading towards the castle.