Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (58 page)

“She was the one who first took you into Otherworld,” Church said. Whose immense power had taken Tom’s body and consciousness apart and reassembled it, who had treated Tom like a toy in the hands of a spoilt but curious brat, his torment so great his mind had almost shattered. And the woman he had grown to love in his captivity and suffering. Church shivered.

“The Faerie Queen, humans called her. She was also known as the Great Goddess by the older races, and a legion of other names.”

“So, she’s, like, a bigshot?” Veitch said. “The Queen.”

“There are many queens among the Tuatha De Danann, all with their own courts, although that term is about as relevant as any other when discussing them. But, yes, she is higher than most.”

“And you think she will help?” Church asked, watching Tom carefully for the truth behind his words.

The Rhymer smiled tightly. “How could she not when her pet returns, rolls over and asks so nicely?”

The bitterness in his voice stung them all. Church knew what a sacrifice Tom would be making; after both the agonies and the crushing blow to his ego, to put himself at risk of facing it all again was more than anyone should be expected to do.

Ruth recognised it too, for there were tears rimming her eyes. She wiped them away, stared at the ground desolately.

“There is no guarantee that she can help, though?” Shavi asked.

Tom raised his hands. “There are never any guarantees.”

“Then we should have an alternative plan.” Shavi rested a comforting hand on Ruth’s back; she shivered, seemed to draw strength from it. “We already have patrons among the Tuatha De Danann. Niamh-“

“I don’t think I can ask her for any more help. She’s trying to sort out Maponus,” Church said; but he had a pang of guilt knowing that he was afraid to approach her after failing to end his relationship with Laura.

“More importantly,” Shavi continued unfazed, “there is Cernunnos. Ruth saved him from the control of the Fomorii. Now she is in difficulty, perhaps he will return the favour.”

“Yes.” Ruth’s eyes grew wide. “He said the Green was inside me.” She struggled to remember his exact words. “He said in the harshest times, you may call for my aid. Seek me out in my Green Home.”

“That’s it, then!” Veitch said excitedly. “Plan A and Plan B. One of ‘em’s got to work!”

“We have to be wary not to get too in debt to any of the Tuatha De Danann.” The weight in Tom’s words gave them all pause.

“This is a desperate situation,” Church said. “We have to take risks.”

“I know,” Tom said. “But you have to be aware there is always a price to pay, and that price may be very high indeed. Do not go into this blindly.”

“Then what’s the plan? How do we get to these freaks?” Veitch had latched on to the suggestions with the simple hope of a child; the brightness of relief lit his face.

Tom cursed under his breath. “I think a good starting point would be for you to learn how to treat them with respect. If you open your mouth like that you won’t have a second chance to speak.”

“Right.” Veitch looked suitably chastened.

“The Queen’s court is accessed under Tom-na-hurich, the Hill of Yews, in Inverness,” Tom said. “It will be a long, difficult journey, so I propose to set off at sunrise-

“You’re not going alone.” Church didn’t leave any room for debate in his tone, but he was still surprised when Tom didn’t argue. Church quickly looked round the others, then stopped at Veitch. “Ryan, you had better go with him. We can’t risk the Queen hanging on to him. There needs to be someone to bring back the goods in an emergency.” He hated speaking so baldly, but he could see Tom knew exactly what the potential risks were.

“Not back up to Scotland,” Veitch moaned. “We’ve only just scarpered from there.”

“What about Cernunnos?” Ruth asked. “Where’s this Green Home?”

“Cernunnos has been most closely linked with the site of the Great Oak in Windsor Park,” Tom said. “The oak is no longer there, but the god is rumoured to appear at the spot which was the prime centre of his worship in antiquity. They say,” Tom added, “he appears there most at times of national crisis.”

“I remember,” Church mused, “another legend linked to that site. About Herne the Hunter.”

Ruth nodded. “Cernunnos said that was one of the names by which he was known.”

“The legends say Herne was a Royal huntsman who saved a king’s life by throwing himself in front of a wounded stag that was threatening to kill his master,” Tom said. “As Herne lay dying, a magician appeared who told the king the only way he could save his huntsman’s life was to cut off the stag’s antlers and tie them to Herne’s head. He recovered and became the best huntsman in the land. But he was so favoured by the king, the other huntsmen, overcome by jealousy, eventually persuaded the king to dismiss him. Herne was so broken by this he went out and hanged himself. And the king never had the same kind of success in his Royal hunts.”

Shavi mused over this story for a moment, then said, “I feel that legend is more metaphor than fact.”

Tom agreed. “There is secret information in all these stories that has the power to survive down the years. That one tells of how the people turned their back on the resurrective and empowering force of nature, how they suffered for it, and how nature suffered too. It was a warning, albeit a gentle one, compared with some of the legends.

“You see,” he continued, as if the information buried under centuries of experience in his mind was starting to come out in a rush, “Cernunnos and his bright, other half are, if you will, the bridge between the Tuatha De Danann and the natural power of this world. In many ways, they are closer to us than they are to their own. It was a joining that happened in the earliest times, when the two gods pledged themselves to this world and, in doing so, the best interests of the people.”

“You’d be good for this one, Shavi,” Church said. “You’re the shaman. You’ve developed all those links to nature. You should be able to communicate with Cernunnos.”

Church felt Laura shift next to him and he knew exactly what she was thinking: Cernunnos had put his mark on her too; Ruth obviously wasn’t in any condition to undertake the journey, but as a favoured of Cernunnos, Laura would have been a natural choice. Church hadn’t chosen her because he felt she wasn’t up to the task, couldn’t be trusted with something so important; and she knew exactly what his reasons were. He felt a pang of guilt at hurting her, but he had to focus on the best interests of the group.

“When I get to the park, how do I contact Cernunnos?” Shavi asked.

“There is a story I recall from my long walk around the world in the sixties,” Tom replied. “In 1962 a group of teenagers found a hunting horn in the forest on the edge of a clearing. They blew it and were instantly answered by another horn and the baying of hounds. It was Cernunnos and the Wild Hunt, with the wish hounds. The boys fled in fear.”

“And the Hunt, I presume, did not depart until they claimed a life,” Shavi noted darkly. “A price to pay indeed.”

“Perhaps he won’t appear in that form,” Ruth suggested hopefully.

Shavi shrugged. “Then I seek out the horn.”

Laura avoided Church’s gaze when he looked from her to Ruth. “That leaves just the three of us,” he said.

“You’re sure we’re up to protecting the Queen Bee,” Laura said acidly.

“We’ll do our best, as always.” It wasn’t a question he really wanted to consider too deeply.

Thunder rolled across the moor; a flash of lightning lit up the northern sky. “Looks like we’re in for a storm.” Veitch seemed happier now he felt he was doing something positive.

They watched the sky for a while, but the bad weather was skirting the edge of the moor, moving eastwards. Another flash of lightning threw the landscape into stark relief.

“What’s that?” Ruth said suddenly. But the night had already swallowed up whatever she had seen.

“What did it look like?” Church asked.

“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded like she had an idea. She moved to the edge of the circle to get a better look.

“Don’t go beyond the stones!” Tom said sharply. “The earth energy gives a modicum of invisibility here if there’s anything supernatural in the vicinity. They’d have to stumble right across us to see us.”

“I don’t know …” Ruth peered into the dark, but it was too deep.

Another flash of lightning, moving away now, so the illumination was not so stark. Even so, Ruth caught her breath; this time it was unmistakable. A large black shape like a sucking void was moving rapidly across the bleak moorland.

“It’s here.” Her voice barely more than a whisper. She turned, eyes wide; the others could read all they needed in her face.

Tom rushed over and kicked out the campfire. “Stay down, stay quiet! It may pass us by.”

At that moment twin beams of light cut through the night, rising high up into the sky like searchlights. A second later they lowered sharply as a car came over a rise and started to head towards them. The headlights briefly washed over the stones as the car came on to the road that ran within sight of the circle.

“Shit,” Veitch said under his breath.

Across the quiet landscape music rolled from the car’s open windows. Church unconsciously noted it was New Radicals singing “You Get What You Give,” but that thought was just a buzz beneath a wash of rising panic. The car’s engine droned. Young voices sang along loudly, male and female, four, maybe five of them.

“Shut up,” Laura hissed to herself.

“Turn off the headlights,” Veitch said.

As if anything will do any good, Church thought.

The car continued its progress, a firefly in the night.

Veitch spun round, his face contorted with anxiety. “We’ve got to get out there and do something! The Bastard will be on them in a minute and those poor fuckers won’t stand a chance!”

Church hesitated; he was right, they ought to try.

Tom seemed to read his mind. “No! No one leaves the circle! If you go out there you will surely die. Even here, your chances are slim-“

“Fuck! We have to do something!” Veitch protested. Church thought he was going to cry.

“You go out there and die in vain, everybody else dies with you!” Tom’s voice was a snarl that would brook no dissent. “You’re too important now! You have to think of the big picture!”

Veitch was starting to move. Tom gripped his shoulder and Veitch tried to shake it off furiously, but Tom held on so effortlessly it seemed incongruous. Veitch half-turned, eyes blazing, but he didn’t move any further.

Another diminishing flash, an instant’s tableau: the dark hulk of the Fomorii warrior had risen up, started to change as its insectile armour clanked and slid into place, preparing to attack. The car trundled along, the occupants oblivious.

Ruth’s eyes were tear-stained. She stared at Church, aghast. He winced, looked away.

“Maybe we could …” Laura stopped, shook her head, walked away until she was out of the others’ line of sight.

Shavi was like an iron staff, his face locked, his eyes fixed on the feeble beams of light.

Suddenly there was a sound like aluminium sheeting being torn in two. Several stars were blotted out. And then the ground trembled. There was an instant when they all had their eyes shut, praying. But they had to see, so they would never forget. The darkness swept down like a pouncing lion. There was a crunching of metal. The headlight beams shot up in the sky. Singing voices suddenly became screams that must have torn throats. New Radicals were still singing, just for an instant longer, then snapped off at the same time as the screams. A second later the lights blinked out. More crunching. Silence. And then an explosion which rocketed flames and shards of metal high into the sky as the petrol tank went up.

Everyone in the circle was holding their breath. The universal exhalation came slowly, filled with despair.

“Get down!” Tom hissed.

They dropped flat so they could feel the vibrations in the ground, fast, growing slower. They didn’t stir until they had died away completely. When they eventually sat up, everyone looked shell-shocked; faces pale, eyes downcast.

“We did that,” Veitch said bluntly. He walked over and leaned on one of the stones, staring out across the moor. The crackling fire cast a hellish glare across the scrub, the smoke rising to obscure the stars.

Ruth leaned in to Shavi who put his arms around her. Church looked over to Laura, but she had her back to him, wrapped in her own isolation.

“You were right,” Church said to Tom, “but I don’t know how you can be so cold.”

All Tom would say as he slumped down at the foot of a stone was, “Life’s much more simple when you’re young.”

It was over an hour before they felt able to talk some more. Veitch still looked broken, the others merely serious.

It was Ruth who voiced the thought that was upmost in all their minds. “If that thing is hunting us, what chance do Church, Laura and I stand? Do you think we can possibly keep ahead of it until one or the other of you gets back?”

“No,” Tom said baldly. “But I have a plan-“

“Well, yippee,” Laura said flatly.

“There is a place not too far away that has the potency of this circle. Another blindspot. It is big, very big, and if you choose your hiding place carefully you should be able to avoid detection for …” He chewed on a knuckle for a second or two. “… Quite a while.”

“That’s not the wholehearted answer I was hoping for,” Ruth said irritatedly.

“Where is it?” Church asked.

“In the High Peaks. It’s a magical hill, more a mountain really, called Mam Tor, the Heights of the Mother, rising up 1,700 feet. The most sacred prehistoric spot in the entire area.”

“A mountain to hide in!” Veitch said in astonishment.

“Great. We can play at being the Waltons,” Laura said.

“The ancients recognised it as a powerful spot. Nearby there is a hill dedicated to Lugh, now known as Lose Hill. All around there are standing stones and other ceremonial sites, all looking up to the hill of the Mother Goddess. At the foot is the Blue John Cavern, where the semi-precious stone originates. A landscape filled with magic and mystery. The perfect hiding place.”