Always Forever (58 page)

The door crashed open and Davenport lurched in, his face pale and drawn.
Shavi helped the farmer to a chair. Veitch's eyes went instantly to the door and
window; the farmhouse was sprawling, impossible to defend.

"Down at the pub," Davenport gasped between juddering breaths. "I was
talking to some bloke about you lot. Never seen him before. He was asking a lot
of questions. I thought he'd just heard the stories, like the rest of us-"

"What happened?" Veitch gripped Davenport's shoulders and had to be
prised off by Shavi.

"After I told him you were up here, his face started to change ... melt ...
I thought I was going mad. Then I thought I was going to black out. One of the
other blokes down there was sharp. Chucked a pint glass at him. I got away, still
thought I was going to puke my guts up."

"Fomorii," Shavi snapped.

"There were more of them," Davenport continued. "I saw as I ran up here.
They were following me-"

His sentence was cut off by a crashing at the front door.

"No time," Tom said. "We will find each other in the west, along the M4 between Reading and London." He nodded to them all, then darted through the back
door where he snatched Davenport's bicycle from its resting place against the wall.

"Hide," Shavi said to the farmer. "They are after us. They will leave you
alone." He saw Veitch's fixed expression and knew he was considering a fight.
"This is not the time. We cannot afford to fail now."

Veitch backed down, and then they were both out of the door, running
across the orchard and into the fields beyond.

His joints aching, Tom pedalled as fast as he could. The evening was alive with
monkey shrieks, dark shapes flitting across the fields towards the farmhouse, the
candlelit rooms surprisingly bright in the sea of night. He desperately hoped Witch and Shavi would escape-if anyone could, they could-but he had his
doubts for Davenport and his wife.

That the Fomorii were still looking for them had taken him by surprise. He
had thought that in the aftermath of their great success at bringing back Balor,
the Night Walkers would have little time for failed insurrectionists.

He narrowed his eyes and concentrated until the thin tracings of Blue Fire
rose from the shadowy background, like silver filigree glinting off the blades of
grass in the fields. It was not strong in that area, but he could still pick out the
ebb and flow. Driving himself on as fast as he could, he searched for a confluence
on the St. Michael's Line.

An hour later he found himself in the Hertfordshire town of Royston, at a point
where the ancient Royal Roads of Britain, the Icknield Way and Ermine Street,
crossed. The town was still, although candles glowed in many windows. The
moment he saw the town name, he knew where he was heading. The old stories
enshrined the mythic power of certain locations so they would never be forgotten by the adepts, however much locals became inured to their mystery.

A grating in the pavement showed his destination, but it took him a while
longer to raise one of the residents to point him in the direction of an old
wooden door. Taking a candle, he made his way along a tunnel to a thirty-foothigh, bell-shaped chamber cut into the solid chalk lying just beneath the street.
He remembered how one of the Culture had told him of its rediscovery in the
eighteenth century when a group of workmen digging a hole found a millstone
sunk in the earth; beneath it was a shaft that led into the cave.

Tom held up the candle and the walls came alive; carved pictures swelled
and receded in the flickering light. Here Sheela-na-Gig, one of the old fertility
goddesses, there Christian images of the crucifixion, and then a mix of the two,
with St. Catherine holding the symbolic eight-spoked wheel of the sun disc. It
had the same resonances as Rosslyn Chapel, where Shavi and Laura had freed the
mad god Maponus, and like that place, it had also been a haunt of the Knights
Templar, the old guardians of secret mysteries and the last people to truly understand the earth energy.

Cautiously he set down the candle and sat cross-legged in the centre of the
chill cave, allowing its symbolism to work its magic on his subconscious. The
shape of an inverted womb and the female images on the wall showed it was a
place where the Earth Goddess was honoured by the ancients; more, it was a
place where the life-giving power of the earth was celebrated.

The atmosphere was already crackling, setting the hairs alive across his arms
and neck. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and prepared for his trip.

The deep dark of predawn clustered along the coastline as Wave Sweeper sailed in
to the sleeping land. The waves crashed in bursts of white along the rocky coast
and the salty scent of seaweed filled the air. Church stood at the rail, filled with
excitement at the prospect of returning home after too long in the strangest of
strange lands. Behind it, though, was apprehension at what lay ahead.

Ruth gave the back of his hand a squeeze with a reassuring smile. Her hair
had been tied back, but the force of the wind still lashed it around. "Ready for
the final act?"

"I don't like the way that sounds." He slipped an arm round her shoulders,
comforted by her warmth.

All around them the deck milled with the Tuatha De Danann readying the
ship for landing. The decks below were crammed with even more of the force:
horses, and strange, gleaming chariots with spiked wheels, an entire deck of
armaments prepared by Goibhniu and his brothers, plus tents and supplies and
all the other minutiae needed by an army on the move.

"I wonder if we'll see the others?" he mused.

"When. It's only a matter of time. We were drawn together in the first
place, and it'll happen again." Her thoughts turned to Veitch; she quickly drove
them out.

"It's funny that it's going to end in London." The spray flew up around him.
"We've come full circle."

"The Universe speaks to us in symbols, that's what Tom would say. I still
can't get over how much we've all changed. If the stakes weren't so high, that
would be ... an achievement in itself."

"You feel better for it all?" He gently touched the space where her finger
had been.

She only had to think for an instant. "As stupid as it seems, I do. Between
this and the rest of my days stretching out in a safe but mundane legal world,
there's no contest. It's such an obvious thing, but we never, ever grasp it: life's
short, so why spend it bumping along in a secure existence that stops you feeling
anything? Life should be about snatching as many great experiences as you can
before you die, trading them in for wisdom. But if you want that, you've got to
take the risk of great lows as well. Any sane person would say there's no contest,
but we keep doing it."

"It's society. Conditioning. That's what we all need to break."

She laughed. "Life in the Age of Reason isn't all the brochures say."

"Reminds me of an old song."

"One nobody else has heard of, I suppose."

"I guess." As they neared the coast, he picked out a few lights in Mousehole;
either early risers or the night watch.

Ruth watched the shadow of thoughts play on his face. "What's wrong?"

`Just wishing the Walpurgis hadn't died before he could tell me what he knew."

"About the one of us who's going to sell all the others down the river?" She
kept her eyes fixed on the shoreline.

"I just hope that wasn't a turning point, the one moment when we could
have saved everything, only to lose out by a hair's breadth. And Callow's
treachery."

"No point worrying about it now." Her face was dark, unreadable. "We've
just got to play the cards as they fall. That, and other cliches."

If the residents of Mousehole knew an alien ship was disgorging some of the
most powerful beings of all existence in their midst, they never showed it. Doors
and windows remained resolutely closed, despite the clatter of metal and the
grind of wheels on stone and the whinnying of horses that looked like any other
until one saw the unnaturally intelligent gleam in their eye.

Yet there was one figure, waiting near the pub where they had stayed on
their arrival. He was wrapped in a voluminous, extreme-weather anorak, the
snorkel hood pulled far forward against the chill so his features were lost to
shadow. Even so, Church recognised him in an instant from the stance, at once
relaxed, yet, conversely, taut.

He ran across the road and threw his arms around the figure. "Tom!"

The Rhymer pulled back his hood to reveal a face worn by exhaustion, the
edge taken off it by the flicker of a smile. "If you knew the trouble I'd had to
get here-"

"We wondered if you were dead!"

"If only." He blushed as Ruth bowled up and planted a large kiss on his
cheek before throwing her arms around him. "Enough of that." He tried to
recapture his grizzly demeanour, but they could both see his true feelings. "We
have serious business ahead."

He filled them in quickly before motioning towards three horses he had tied up at
the side of the pub. "We can be at St. Michael's Mount soon after dawn, if we hurry."

"And what do I get to do while Mr. Hero goes off and does all his testosterone business?" Despite her tone, Church knew Ruth wasn't offended that she
had to sit it out; she was afraid for him and wanted to help.

"It'll be okay," he said. "I have to do it alone. It's a destiny thing. You know,
like the old stories. Except this time they've got me instead of King Arthur.
Bummer, eh?"

Baccharus sauntered over when he saw the three of them conversing.
"Greetings, True Thomas. I knew you would not let hardship come between us
meeting again."

"Baccharus. So your people have finally decided to stir themselves into
action, I see."

"The Golden Ones like to conserve their energy so they are more effective
when the time is ripe."

Tom tried to read his face, but the god gave nothing away. "You better watch
yourself, Baccharus. Humour? What's next: laughter, tears and broken hearts?
They'll be drumming you out of the Arrogance Club for good behaviour."

"Oh, I can still be arrogant, True Thomas. When one is highborn, one does
not lose that trait."

Tom shook his head, stifling a grin. They told Baccharus that they would
have to take their leave, without giving him details of their mission, in case
news leaked out to those of the Tuatha De Danann not sympathetic to humanity.

Baccharus shook their hands in turn. "Then I wish you all well, for you have
been the best of companions. We shall meet again before battle is joined."

As the three horses left the melee behind, Church felt sad. Baccharus had
proved both a good comrade-in-arms and a friend, despite his difficulty in
expressing emotion. But soon the night closed in around them and all thoughts
turned to the dangers that lurked beyond the black hedgerows.

The village of Marazion was peaceful in the pale, early morning sunlight. Tom,
who had amassed several lifetimes of knowledge, gave them a potted history of
the oldest chartered town in Cornwall, its great age marked by the twisty-turny
thirteenth-century streets running down to the wide stretch of sandy beach.

Ahead of them, St. Michael's Mount rose up majestically, a throne of stone
in the bay bearing the crumbling castle and ancient chapel silhouetted against
the sky; it had been the source of dreams for generations. Legends clustered hard
around the bulky island, hazy in the morning mist; stories of giants and angels,
lovers and redeemers.

Ruth reined in her horse, closed her eyes and put her face up to the sun as
she took a deep breath of the cool, soothing air. She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "It's weird. It's only been a matter of weeks, but already it smells different
... sweeter."

Church knew what she meant: no traffic fumes, no faint aroma of burning plastics, no hint of the modern world that made all the senses recoil, but that
everyone had simply grown to accept. He followed the sweep of golden sands to
the break of surf on the edge of the blue sea. "We've got everything here that
makes life worth living. So tell me again why we need to go back?"

Tom slid off his mount and tied it to a tree. "Leave the horses. From here,
we go on foot. Like pilgrims."

He led them across the dunes to a rough stone causeway. The tide was out
so they could walk easily to the Mount. Despite the time of year and the salty
sea breeze, it was peculiarly warm, reminding Ruth of the same unseasonal
weather she had appreciated at Glastonbury. "I feel safe here," she said.

As they walked, Tom spoke in a dreamy monotone, describing the history
and symbolism of the place that now towered over them. The beat and tone of
his words made it almost a ritualistic chant, lulling them into deep thoughts
born in the dark subconscious.

"In the old Cornish language this place was called Carreg Luz en Kuz, translated as the Hoar Rock in the Wood. In the ancient Celtic language, hoar often
refers to a standing stone. There is no standing stone now, but who knows? You
now know what the stones mark ..." His words were caught by the wind, disappeared. When they picked up his monologue again, he had changed tack.
"Once this place was known as Dinsul, or Citadel of the Sun. This is where the
wise men of the Celts called up their god of light. There is a very clear tradition
of sun worship at this site. Then the cult of St. Michael grew up in the Middle
Ages after a vision of the saint filled with light appeared atop the Mount. So the
old ways were passed on through the Christian religion where the site became
dedicated to St. Michael, a saint who became a symbol associated with light. In
the language of symbols, there is no differentiation between the old religion and
the new. The same source, different names."