Always Forever (21 page)

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.