Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (29 page)

“No-” Witch began to protest, but Reynolds held up a silencing hand.

“After her death I waited every day for that sign. Weeks passed, months. Of course, there was no sign. Two people in love create a fantasy world where anything can happen, one that has no connection with reality. In reality there is no hope. Love does not cross boundaries.”

Veitch stared into the golden depths of his drink, his mood dipping rapidly. Gradually he became aware that Reynolds was staring at him and when he looked up he saw the elderly man was beaming.

“And then the other afternoon, when I woke from my nap, I found this on my pillow in a slight indentation.” He dipped in his pocket and held up something almost invisible in the light.

“What is it?” Veitch said squinting.

Reynolds summoned him closer. Between the elderly man’s fingers was a long, curly red hair. Reynolds brought it gently to his nose, closed his eyes, inhaled. “And here I am, all those years ago.” When he opened his eyes they were rimmed with tears. “Her scent was on the pillow, and again this morning.”

“You’re sure-?” Veitch began, but he saw the answer in Reynolds’s face.

Reynolds traced away one of the tears with a fingertip. “I wasted my life believing in nothing when there was everything to believe in. I wasted my life by not holding hope close to my heart. Don’t make the same mistake, my boy. Don’t wait until you’re too old and wrinkled to appreciate what life has to offer, and don’t wait until you’re nearly on your deathbed before you gain some kind of salvation. There really is a bigger picture. We might have no idea what it is. It might not fit any of our past preconceptions. But knowing it’s there changes the way we look at the world, the way we deal with each other, the way we face up to hardship. It changes everything.” He smiled as another tear trickled gently down his cheek.

Veitch took a hasty swig of his whisky as another lump rose in his throat.

“In the last few weeks nothing has changed, really, truly, apart from a way of seeing the world. An old way, made new again. We forgot it for so long, settled for a new reality that seemed better, but was much, much worse,” Reynolds said quietly. “There may be a lot of trouble that has been introduced into the world in recent times. But everything is defined by its opposite, and with the fear and terror have come hope and wonder. These times are not all bad, my boy. There are a lot of wonderful things out there. And perhaps, for all the suffering, this new world is better than what existed before: all its machines that made our lives so easy, yet no wonder, no magic. This is what we need as humans, my boy. Hope, faith, mystery, a sense of something greater. This is what we need. Not DNA analysis, faster cars, quicker computers, more consumer disposables, more scientific reductionism. This is what we need.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Witch began; he struggled to find the right words. “Maybe it’s not all as bad as people have been making out. You know, for me, personally, I think it might be better.”

“Then go into your big quest with a strong heart,” Reynolds said, “but don’t try to make things back the way they were, for all our sakes.”

Veitch drained his malt slowly, thinking about Ruth, about the terrors they were facing. “Something to believe in,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “That’s all we need.”

n her deepest, darkest, most testing time, Ruth plumbed the depths of her character for reserves she never knew existed. Every hour seemed torturous, trapped in a minute world that encompassed only the claustrophobic confines of her cell, the ever-present darkness, the chill that left her bones aching to the marrow, the foul odours that occasionally drifted through from beyond the door. Part of her resilience, she knew, came from her ability to view her crucible of pain as a chrysalis. She would store up as much learning from her invisible companion as she could and when she emerged she would be wiser, more confident, stronger; no longer the weak-willed Ruth Gallagher who was living her life for the sake of other people. When she emerged.

She had grown numb to the regular periods of suffering inflicted on her by the Fomorii. Her body bore numerous wounds which would scar over into a mural of pain that would never leave her. The stump of her missing finger ached constantly and sometimes she almost imagined it was still there. But in a way the routine was almost comforting: the dull sounds of bodies moving towards her door, the insane shrieks and grunts growing louder, the feeling of nausea as the door was thrown open to reveal the almost unbearable visage of a Fomor. And then the long drag to the chamber where the instruments were kept, where the furnace burned in one corner, the atmosphere sticky and foul.

This time it was different. When the door burst open, the first face she saw was the corrupt beauty of the hybrid Fomorii priest Calatin, his expression contemptuous and cruel. He wore a filthy white shift top and leather breeches; his long hair was greasy and infested, a parody of a sophisticated aristocrat.

“Serith Urkolhn,” he said in his guttural dialect as he nodded to Ruth. “I thought I had seen the last of you. You proved a minor irritation until your grand failure exposed how truly pathetic you were. An insult to the very essence of the Pendragon Spirit. Oh, how your world must have mourned and wailed and cursed your name into the cold void. In that most important hour, you proved yourself as insignificant as the rest of your kind-we needed waste no more time on you.

“But then there you were, delivered to our door, at a turning point in our plans.” He chewed on a fingernail and giggled. “And a notion came to me of great irony. Oh, to strike a blow against the feeble order of nature! To throw up an abomination! To show our contempt for all existence!”

“Just get it over with,” Ruth spat.

This time they dragged her to a different room. No furnace, no torture instruments; it was almost stately by Fomorii standards. Rough wood and stone, a tapestry hanging on the wall depicting scenes Ruth couldn’t bring herself to examine, and, in the centre, a strange curved bench which appeared to be made of polished obsidian. Flickering torches cast a sickly, ruddy glare over the room.

Ruth was so weak she could barely stand. The Fomorii strapped her to the bench with harsh leather straps that bit into her flesh. Her head was spinning so much from her fragility she couldn’t begin to understand what was happening. Instead she focused on the small joy that came from the knowledge there would be no torture that day.

Through watery eyes she watched Calatin pacing the room, suddenly intense and serious. He examined the bench, the straps, and then gently stroked a long, thin finger down her cheek and smiled cruelly. “You have proved you are ready.”

He stepped to one side and motioned to the rear of the chamber. Two Fomorii emerged from the gloom carrying an ornate wooden chest which they placed somewhere below her feet. Through the thick stone walls Ruth heard a deep, slow rhythm, as if an enormous ceremonial drum was being hit. Every few beats it was followed by the grim tolling of the distant bell she had heard before; there was something about the relentless sound that made her very frightened.

“What are you going to do?” she croaked.

Calatin merely smiled. He motioned to the other Fomorii, who bent down to open the chest. A second later they rose with a purple velvet cushion on which lay an enormous black pearl, the size of a child’s bowling ball. When Ruth saw it, she was overcome by an irrational wave of terror. Unable to control her feelings, she tried to drive herself backwards and off the bench, but the straps held fast.

Two more Fomorii moved in on either side of her and held her head fast. “No,” she gasped.

One of the Fomorii forced some kind of metal implement between her lips and then ground it between her teeth. With a snap he forced her mouth open so sharply pain stabbed through the tendons at the back of her jaw.

Almost tenderly, one of the other Fomorii lifted the pearl and brought it towards her.

Ruth had a sudden flash of what Calatin intended. Her eyes widened as panic flooded through her system, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream; the only sound that emerged from her throat was a desperate, keening whine.

“If it will not go in, break her jaw,” Calatin said curtly.

Ruth watched in terror as the pearl came towards her. It was so big it would choke her instantly. She thrashed from side to side, but the Fomorii held her fast.

And then the pearl was so close it was all she could see; the darkness engulfed her every sense. Her lips touched it and it felt as cold as ice, but it tasted of nothing. It pressed hard into her mouth, grinding against her teeth. Her muffled gasps grew more laboured. Her panic obscured all rational thought. There was simply the constantly increasing pressure, the pain as they forced her mouth wider and wider still, the thought that it would never fit, the horror if it did.

And then somehow her mouth was around it and just as she waited for them to retreat, they increased the pressure and began to ram it further, trying to force it down her throat.

She choked, felt her lungs protest at the lack of oxygen. And still they pressed and rammed and forced.

And then a strange thing happened. Through her overwhelming anxiety, she felt an odd sensation deep in her throat; it seemed like cotton wool at first, and then as if her throat was coming apart in gossamer strands.

And then the black pearl began to go down.

The last thing Ruth felt was an enormous pressure and a terrible coldness filling her neck. And the last thing she saw was Calatin’s face swamping her vision, grinning triumphantly.

Shavi and Laura woke at first light, entwined together as if they were desperate lovers afraid to face the world. No words were exchanged as they crawled out into a land of drifting white mists and thick greenery. The morning was chill, despite the season, and an eerie stillness hung over all, punctuated only by the occasional mournful cry of a bird and the regular drip of moisture from the leaves. The nagging atmosphere of lament and loneliness had not dissipated in the slightest.

They ate a breakfast of beans and bread in silence against the dull rumble of the river which was so unceasing they no longer heard it. Laura kept a surreptitious eye on Shavi, who still appeared pale and drawn, but whenever he saw her looking he flashed his open, honest smile; even so, she could tell the weight of the night and what was to follow lay heavy on him.

After breakfast they washed the pots in the river and packed up the tent with a meticulousness that suggested they were both playing for time. Eventu ally they had no choice but to pick their trail back along the glen until they reached the steep path up to the bridge.

Ten minutes later they stood outside the chapel compound trying to get a glimpse of the building, but it was obscured by trees and high walls as the current custodians intended. The mist collected even more tightly around them, so it was impossible to see beyond the perimeter of the small, stoney car park outside the visitors’ centre. It had the odd effect of distorting sounds so that at times they felt someone was approaching, only for the noise-whatever it wasto materialise yards away. They waited and listened, but after a while they had to accept there was no one else in the vicinity.

“I guess we climb over the wall,” Laura said tentatively.

Shavi nodded, rubbing his chin introspectively.

“But what then? Where do we even begin to start looking for …” She glanced over her shoulder uncomfortably, as if she had sensed someone standing there “… that thing we’re looking for?”

“The chapel is consistently described as an arcanum, a book in stone. The carvings that cover the building are a code designed to be pondered upon. They may offer religious guidance, or fables-“

“Or they may tell us where the prison cell is.” Laura hugged her arms around her. “Okay. Now don’t get me wrong-you’re a mustard-sharp guy, Shav-ster. But if people have been trying to decipher this place for centuries, what makes you think you can waltz in and do it in a few minutes?”

Shavi wagged a finger at her, smiling. “I never said I could decipher it in minutes. But we have two things denied the searchers who came before us.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“Firstly, we know what we are looking for.” He took the wagging finger and tapped the side of his nose. “And secondly, intuition.”

“A shaman’s intuition, you mean. You going to be doing some more of your funny stuff?”

His smile grew enigmatic as he looked towards where the chapel was hidden. “I intend to allow the building to speak to me.”

“Well, give it my regards.” She turned and walked towards the compound wall. Shavi heard her mutter, but obviously loud enough for his benefit, “You nutter.”

She gave him a leg up on to the wall and he pulled her up behind him. A second later they had dropped into the chapel grounds. The building lay just a few feet away across the wet grass, a grim, Gothic pile that looked like it had been designed for some thirties Expressionist movie; it was breathtaking, despite the ugly, silver scaffolding that clung to it. An oppressive, brooding aura rolled off the building, dampening their spirits, almost physically forcing them to bow their heads. It was both threatening and frightening, Laura decided.