Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (17 page)

“Get out,” Veitch said coldly.

The spy made a gesture of reluctance and moved off, but when he was far enough beyond their arc to feel safe once more, he turned back and flashed the same arrogant smile. “Be seeing you.” And then he was swallowed up by a crowd of drinkers heading towards the bar.

They played with their drinks in silence for a moment and then Shavi said, “What do you think?”

“You know what I think,” Veitch replied. “He’s a liar. How can you believe any of that bollocks?”

“You know how it is with these gods and mystical items and all that stuff that’s supposedly crossed over. We all see them in different ways.” Laura gently rubbed the scar tissue on her face, a mannerism she had developed whenever she was feeling particularly uncomfortable. She rapped her head. “All this stupid grey matter up here can’t begin to grasp what they really are.”

Tom adjusted his spectacles thoughtfully. “I’ve had more occasions of altered perception than most people so I have little fondness for some overarching view of reality. He was right-everyone has their own reality, none more valid than any other. Personally, I find it hard to believe that all my memories have been implanted, but it’s certainly possible. I could be a carpenter from Wigan or a used-car salesman from Weymouth who only believes he’s the mythical Thomas the Rhymer. Who’s to say? But I do believe this-you can chase your tail round in circles for the rest of your life trying to find out what the truth really is, or you can just deal with it the way you think it is. Paralysis or action. And does it really matter what the higher power truly is-some incomprehensible power seen as dark gods by ancient man or corrupt humans? Surely the aim is to defeat it, whatever it is.”

“It matters to me,” Laura said. “If I can’t put a head in the target sights, I can’t pull the trigger.”

The confusion had brought an air of despondency to the table. Church knew he had to take some action to prevent the paralysis Tom had mentioned. “Tom’s right. There’s no point sitting here like a bunch of pathetic losers. We’ve operated in a state of permanent confusion for the last few months, so this isn’t going to make any difference.” He turned to Laura, although his words were meant for all of them. “Okay, if you want to believe somebody who turns up out of the blue and frankly admits his life is based on telling lies, then that’s your prerogative. But at least keep it at the back of your mind until you find some evidence to back it up. I don’t believe we should mention it again. What do you say?”

Laura shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss.” A ripple of agreement ran through the others.

As the clock neared midnight, the bar began to thin out. Church watched the drinkers hovering near the door as if they were reluctant to venture out into the night, making jokes about watching out for the “bogles” waiting to chase them home.

“It’s as if they all secretly know there’s something frightening out there, but won’t admit it to themselves or anyone else,” he mused aloud.

“Normal human nature,” Shavi said. “Who would want to believe the world is how it is?”

Laura finished her drink and slammed the glass down theatrically. “So are you really trying to fool yourself this was anything other than a night’s serious drinking?”

“We have actually learned a great deal with this reconnaissance,” Tom said indignantly. “Would you rather rush into danger blindly? We know that in the New Town Edinburgh seems untouched by what is happening. Yet the Old Town is transformed, corrupted. That tells me the Fomorii are here as we suspected, and here in this particular quarter of the city.”

“You better not be saying we need to get out on the streets at this time of night.” Although Laura was as combative as normal, Church could hear the uneasiness in her voice.

“I don’t think it would be wise after midnight,” Church said.

“So far the Fomorii have confined themselves to the out-of-the-way places, the lonely places,” Shavi began. “Why do you think they are here, at this time?”

“Because,” Tom replied, “the Well of Fire makes this one of the most significant places in the land. In times past the Fomorii would not have been able to come within miles of this site, but now the Earth-blood is dormant. So, I presume, there is a certain frisson in colonising a place that was so important to everything they despise.”

“The dark overcoming the light,” Shavi noted.

They finished their drinks and left, their heads swimming with too much alcohol and all the doubts implanted by the spy. Outside, the unseasonal chill had grown even colder. Laura shivered. “Jesus, it’s like winter.”

The Royal Mile was deserted. Church had visited the city with Marianne for the Festival and he knew it was never so dead. An eerie stillness lay oppressively over everything; no lights burned in any windows, the late-night coffee shop was closed, even the street lights seemed dim.

They didn’t need any prompting to move hastily back to the hotel. But as they made their way up Lawnmarket towards the spotlit bulk of the castle, the night dropped several more degrees and their breath bloomed all around them. A dim blue light seeped out of Ramsay Lane, although they couldn’t tell if it was some optical illusion caused by the stark illumination of the castle. As they drew closer, however, there was no doubt. The sapphire glow emanated from somewhere along the road they had travelled earlier that evening, casting long shadows across their path; the shadows moved slightly, as if the light was not fixed.

“Police?” Shavi suggested.

Tom was unusually reticent. “I don’t think so.”

A deep hoar frost sparkled on the road and gleamed on the windows near where Ramsay Lane turned sharply. They marvelled at the display of cold in the first thrust of summer, but then a dark shape suddenly lurched into view and they all jumped back a step. Veitch quickly moved in front of them, lowering his centre of gravity ready to fight. The shape moved slowly, awkwardly, in a stiff-limbed manner; they saw it was a man with long black hair and a bushy beard they had seen drinking in the pub-except now his hair and beard was white with frost and his skin had a faint blue sheen that shimmered in the street light. He slumped against a wall, saw Church and the others and reached out a pleading hand. A faint strangled sound escaped his throat which they presumed was a cry for help.

As they ran forward, he crumpled to the pavement, still.

Laura went to turn him over, then snatched back her hand. “Ow! Too cold to touch.”

Shavi blew on his hands, then quickly pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. “No pulse.”

“What do you think, Tom?” Church said.

It was only when the Rhymer didn’t answer that they realised he wasn’t with them. They looked up to see him standing at the top of Ramsay Lane, staring towards the source of the blue light. His expression had grown even more troubled.

As the others ran back to his side they were shocked to see the whole of Ramsay Lane was covered in ice, as if it had been transported to the middle of the Antarctic. At the bottom of the winding street the blue light glowed brightly. It was bobbing gently in their direction and at the heart of it they thought they could make out a dark figure. As it moved, the ice on the surrounding buildings grew noticeably thicker.

“What is it?” Church asked in hushed amazement.

Tom’s voice was choked so low Church could barely hear the reply. “The Cailleach Bheur.”

“In English,” Laura snapped.

He looked at her with eyes shocked and wide. “The Blue Hag, spirit of winter. Quickly, now!” He roughly pushed them until they were moving hurriedly back down the Royal Mile, the way they had come. Tom kept them to the middle of the road and only calmed once they had turned off the High Street on to the broad thoroughfare of the North Bridge. Once they were firmly over Waverley Station he slumped against a wall, one hand on his face.

“What was that?” Church asked forcefully.

It was a moment or two before Tom answered, “One of the most primal forces of this land.”

Church couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder towards the shadowshrouded Old Town. “Fomorii?”

“No, nor of the Tuatha De Danann. Like the Fabulous Beasts, the Blue Hag and her sisters are a higher power, almost impossible to control. Yet the Fomorii have somehow bent her to their will, like they did with the first Fabulous Beast you encountered. They have her patrolling the Old Town like some guard dog, leaving them free to carry on their business.”

“She’s some kind of evil witch?” Veitch said hesitantly.

Tom turned a cold gaze on him. “If the deepest, coldest, darkest, harshest winter is evil. The Cailleach Bheur is a force of nature. Nothing can survive her touch.”

“You know, hag doesn’t sound too frightening when you think about it. It makes you think of bath chairs and whist drives that never end-“

Tom’s glare stopped Laura in her tracks. “The Cailleach Bheur controls the fimbulwinter. If she unleashes it the entire planet will freeze and all life will be destroyed.”

“That sounds like a tremendous power for the Fomorii to influence,” Church said.

“It’s a mark of their confidence. Or their arrogance.” Tom put his head back and took a deep breath. Some of the strength returned to his face. “It will have taken a tremendous ritual, an appalling sacrifice, for them to control her, and even then it will undoubtedly be for only a short while. They really are playing with fire this time.”

“Bad joke, old man.” Laura rattled a stone across the road with her boot. “And this thing has sisters?”

“Black Annis, the devourer of children, who makes her home in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. And Gentle Annie, who controls the storms.”

“I think I prefer that last one,” she said.

“The name is ironic,” Tom said, “and designed to placate her. You wouldn’t want to be caught in one of her storms.”

Church recalled Black Annis from his university studies. “But the scholars believe the myth of Black Annis grew out of the Celtic worship of Dann or Ann, the Mother of the Danann.”

“The same provenance,” Tom snapped, “but very different.”

The night in the New Town was summery and relaxing, but a blast of wind filled with icy fingers rushed down from the hill, as if to remind them what lay only a short distance away.

“Then to get to the Fomorii, wherever they might be, we have to go past the Blue Hag,” Church said.

Tom nodded. “And in the minds of the old people, the Cailleach Bheur was another name for Death.”

His voice drifted out on the chill wind that spread out across the city.

n daylight the Old Town seemed less oppressive, but there was still an uneasy undercurrent which made them keen to move through it quickly. Witch wondered if the authorities had any idea what was happening among the jumbled clutter of ancient buildings; although it hadn’t been sealed off, the tourist office was closed and the crowds that moved in the historic sector were even thinner than on the previous day. The body of the frozen man had been removed.

From the Royal Mile they stopped to survey their destination. The extinct volcano of Arthur’s Seat presented them with the curve of Salisbury Crags, dark and formidable.

“At least 350 million years since it last erupted,” Laura said, consulting the tourist guide she had shoplifted earlier; Church had been forced to return to the bookshop to pay for it. “But with our luck …”

“This is an ancient landscape,” Tom mused. “There were people hunting here nine thousand years ago.”

“Wow, that’s even older than you,” Laura Jibed.

He harrumphed under his breath. The others couldn’t understand how he always fell for Laura’s Jibes. “You know, the Celts recognised the importance of this place,” he continued with his back to Laura. “The Castle Rock was a stronghold for the Gododdin tribe, who named it Dunedin, the hill fort. But they weren’t here because the high ground was easily defendable. It was that.” He pointed to the soaring heights of Arthur’s Seat. “The sacred place of power.”

With the help of Laura’s guide book, they ignored the steepest paths to the top. Hiring a car for quick passage along the winding route of Queen’s Drive, they drove up through the increasingly rough countryside towards the 823-foot summit. At the start of their journey they passed an odd grille set into a wall before being drawn by the placid waters of St. Margaret’s Loch, overseen by the grim ruins of St. Anthony’s Chapel. Not long after they arrived at Dunsapie Loch, where they found a path with a gentle gradient. The summit presented them with an astonishing view across the city and beyond, to the Borders and Fife. When he saw it, Tom grew still as he quietly studied the homeland he had left so many hundreds of years before, and after a moment or two he wandered off to be alone with his thoughts. Veitch and Shavi set off in a different direction to explore the surroundings.

“This is amazing.” Church was surprised to hear wonder had driven the cynicism out of Laura’s voice. “We’re right in the middle of the city!”

“I didn’t expect you to be bowled over by lyrical views,” Church said.

She glanced at him from behind her sunglasses. “Shows how much you know. Nature is the only thing worth believing in in this shitty life.”