Always Forever taom-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  After rescuing Ruth, the two of them escaped the tunnels to discover the Fabulous Beasts destroying everything corrupted by the Fomorii evil, while the Blue Fire ran out from Arthur's Seat in a lattice of reinvigorating energy; the land was beginning to come alive. Maponus and the Cailleach Bheur were both forced to flee in the face of the Fabulous Beasts. And then, finally, the castle and the burrows beneath were destroyed in the conflagration.

  The companions were finally reunited in Greyfriars Kirkyard, but their joy was short lived. The spirits of the dead rose to drive them out, saying they were "unclean." Weary but elated, they fled the city: not only had they rescued Ruth, they had also stopped the plan to bring back Balor.

  That night, while they rested by the campfire, they met two minor members of the Tuatha De Danann pantheon who were wandering the land in search of experience. Cormorel and Baccharus told Church if he wished to remove the Fomorii corruption within him he should visit something called the Pool of Wishes in the Western Isles, a fabulous place in T'r n'a n'Og where the home of the Gods lay.

  Heading south they came to a strangely quiet village-my village-where people refused to answer their doors after sunset. A few of us were gathered in the local pub and I remember how I felt the moment they wandered through the door. I was a rough and ready journalist. I'd met people from all walks of life, but I'd never met anyone like them before. They were apart from everyone else, as if they'd witnessed things none of us could ever dream of; which, of course, they had.

  We rarely saw strange faces in that haunted place so I went over to introduce myself, and to tell them what kind of hell they'd wandered into. For weeks we'd been the prey of strange creatures we couldn't identify. They roamed the lonely fields during the day, but under cover of darkness they came into the village, looking like nothing more than sheets flapping in the wind-but one of our local farmers had seen them reduce a sheep to bloody chunks in seconds. Some people died before we learned they couldn't get into houses past locked doors. But even though we'd warned everyone to lock their doors at sunset, people were still getting killed in their homes. It was a mystery we couldn't understand. Naturally, those six brave people agreed to help us solve our problem.

  After Shavi expressed his guilt at freeing Maponus, Church summoned Niamh, who agreed to marshall the Tuatha De Danann to bring back their errant god on one condition: that Church broke off his relationship with Laura so that he could learn to love her. Although it confirmed what Church had suspected about Niamh's feelings, it was still a shock. His relationship with Laura was in a state of flux, and he had no idea how he really felt about her, but to put her on one side seemed so callous. Yet the burden of responsibility proved too great. How could he set their petty emotions above the chance to prevent Maponus murdering more people? He agreed, reluctantly, and though he didn't recognise it at the time, his decision was swayed by that strange emotional power the Tuatha De Danann held over mortals.

  Ruth was concerned that she had had no contact with her familiar since her imprisonment. She embarked on a tantric sex ritual with Veitch, during which the familiar came to her to tell her she was tainted-she must seek help or die. Tom obviously feared the worst; he told her she had to be examined by the Tuatha De Danann.

  I drove Church, Tom, and Ruth to Richmond in Yorkshire, where a path was found beneath the castle to T'ir n'an n'Og and the Court of the Final Word. This was a disturbing place that claimed to be dedicated to healing but where much darker probings into the mystery of existence continued away in the shadows. Here they met the god the Celts called Dian Cecht, the master healer, who agreed to help them. I don't mind admitting he terrified me. He prepped Ruth for an op and set his Caraprix free for an internal investigation of her head. It didn't last long. The Caraprix erupted out of her head like it had been fired out of a gun. "The Sister of Dragons has been corrupted beyond all meaning of the word," Dian Cecht said to us. "She is the medium for the return of the Heart of Shadows." It didn't sink in straightaway, but when it did, I felt like throwing up. The Black Pearl she'd swallowed back in Edinburgh had contained the essence of Balor. It had been distilled from all that black gunk Church and the others had found in Salisbury and beneath Dartmoor. Ruth was to be the receptacle that would allow its rebirth, but that doesn't begin to illuminate the true horror of the situation. In a matter of weeks, Balor would burst out of her, fully formed, killing her instantly. They'd obviously chosen her because she was powerful enough to cope with the rigours of what lay ahead. The pearl wasn't actually, truly, inside her, I don't think; I'm no good at getting my head around the physics of this.

  Naturally, Dian Cecht refused to help her further. The Tuatha De Danann had a problem in dealing with anything corrupted by the Fomorii, and here was the corruption to end them all. So they threw us out, consigning Ruth to the worst fate of all. She took it well, under the circumstances, but it wouldn't be wrong to say we were all devastated. The others thought they'd done their bit to stop Balor being reborn, and all along they were doing the things that would make it actually happen. And there was the ultimate moral dilemma: could Church kill Ruth to prevent Balor from coming back into the world, even knowing she would die when the birth happened anyway?

  On the way back from Richmond we encountered the terrifying Fomorii warrior Witch had first seen beneath Edinburgh Castle. It was like a tank, enormous, unstoppable, ploughing through cars at a phenomenal speed. We escaped — just. The Fomorii had obviously unleashed it to retrieve Balor. That was the one bright spot for the companions, that the Fomorii must have been tearing themselves apart to know their supreme god was now in the hands of the enemy.

  Meanwhile, Veitch, Shavi, and Laura continued to investigate the deaths in the village. It was Veitch who made the big discovery: the doors of the latest victims had been forced open, allowing the predators in. The trail led back to some of our supposedly friendly village's more well-heeled residents. They'd been sacrificing those they considered undesirable by breaking open their houses so the creatures could get in, leaving the rich free to carry on with their lives and businesses. Witch dragged off the ringleader for summary punishment, much to the concern of Shavi and Laura.

  I waved goodbye to them that day, not quite realizing how much they'd changed my life. For the first time I'd seen some hope in a world that had gone mad. Right then we desperately needed heroes, and I was determined to tell everyone who they were. That was my calling in life.

  They continued south along the Pennines, with no idea what they were supposed to be doing anymore. Meanwhile, Ruth was growing sicker and sicker. Finally they sent out two missions to seek help for Ruth: one to Cernunnos and one to the Queen responsible for Tom's suffering. Church and Laura would stay to guard Ruth at Mam Tor in the Peaks, a place saturated in the earth energy which would blind the searching Fomorii to their presence.

  Shavi went south towards Windsor Park where Cernunnos could be summoned, eventually hooking up with a group of travellers. But he woke one morning to find a woman murdered, her finger missing. Whatever had been pursuing them since Loch Maree was now after him alone.

  Tom and Veitch headed north, through several adventures, including an encounter with a race of manwolves, the Lupinari, and the discovery that the Tuatha De Danann nature gods were reforesting the land. Finally they arrived at Inverness, where they were taken by the Queen's guard to the Court of the Yearning Heart.

  The Queen proved an expert at manipulation. She focused her attention on Witch, but Tom had already warned him to obey the rules of T'ir n'a n'Og: not to eat or drink anything there or he would become a prisoner of the Queen forever. She agreed to help if Veitch undertook one mission for her: to kill or capture the Questing Beast, a mysterious but fierce primaeval creature that had escaped from the Court into our world.

  Witch hunted the creature down, but he was almost killed in the process. As he was close to death, the Queen tended to his wounds, eventually tricking him into drinking a single droplet of water. He was forced to r
emain there, with the threat of undergoing the same terrible experiments that had so traumatized Tom.

  On Mam Tor, Church, Ruth, and Laura discovered a deserted cottage where they could hide out. On one wall there was a mass of writing impossible to decipher. Church, who had continued his relationship with Laura, was confronted by a furious Niamh, who came close to slaying him for breaking his promise to her. Instead of helping capture Maponus, she had brought the mad god to the vicinity of the Tor, to wreak his vengeance upon Church.

  In a moment of staggering revelation, Church deciphered the scrawling on the wall to read a message for him from his dead girlfriend, Marianne. He had no idea how she had managed to contact him, or why he was only aware of it at that moment, but it was a transcendental experience that gave him a glimpse of the meaning behind everything. Infused with this understanding at his lowest ebb, he found new strength to fight on.

  With a half-formed plan in mind, Church crept through the Fomorii- infested countryside in search of Maponus. He found him-and the Bone Inspector, who had been tracking the insane god. Church explained his plan and the Bone Inspector agreed to help, but on his way back to the cottage, Church was finally brought face-to-face with the Fomorii warrior. The battle was short and brutal, and Church was left broken. But before the warrior could end his life, the beast was itself killed, by Mollecht, freed from his imprisonment at the hands of Calatin by the devastation in Edinburgh. Instead of slaying Church, he departed, leaving behind a mysterious black sword, obviously for Church's use. Church took it back to the cottage, attempting to recover from his wounds before the Fomorii's imminent attack.

  In Windsor Park, Shavi summoned Cernunnos, who gave him a strange potion to help Ruth. The essence of Balor could not be destroyed, but it could be removed, Cernunnos told him; like everything connected with the gods, a price would have to be paid, a sacrifice made.

  As Shavi made his way back, he was attacked by the pursuer they perceived as a giant wolf. It was Callow, hideously transformed by Calatin for his part in the debacle that led to the freeing of the exiled Tuatha De Danann. His suffering had driven him insane and he had been stalking the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons as architects of his pain, cutting off fingers in a ritual that only he truly understood. He murdered Shavi with one blow of his knife, then loped away in pursuit of the others.

  At Mam Tor, on the eve of Lughnasadh, the Fomorii attacked in force. Church sent Laura to stand guard over Ruth in the cottage while he faced up to Calatin in a mirror image of the confrontation on Skye that had led to his death. Although badly injured, this time Church had an advantage: the black sword bequeathed him by Mollecht. It had a life of its own, shaping his attack, then plunging into Calatin's heart of its own volition. Calatin was eradicated on the spot, a fate beyond imagining for a god unable to be completely destroyed. And then the sword revealed its true form: it was Mollecht's shape-shifting Caraprix.

  Before the Fomorii could seek revenge, the Bone Inspector led Maponus into their midst, where the mad god wreaked vengeance for his suffering. When the carnage was finally over and the Fomorii fled, the Tuatha De Danann reclaimed their insane kinsman.

  Then, in the middle of victory, there was only one last, terrible act for Church: to kill Ruth and prevent Balor from being reborn. As he approached the cottage with a heavy heart, Ruth stepped out, seemingly freed from the corruption of Balor. But nothing is ever that simple. Cernunnos had appeared during the battle and offered his potion to Laura, who accepted the sacrifice to save Ruth. The essence of Balor was transferred from Ruth to Laura, an act of spiritual redemption that would mean her own death. As Ruth gradually came round, Mollecht and his loyal Fomorii broke in and took Laura; the crowcreature's supremacy in the Fomorii hierarchy was now assured.

  Unable to come to terms with the act of sacrifice from a woman they had both considered beyond saving, Church and Ruth waited for Lughnasadh to dawn. There was no fire from heaven, nor instant destruction, just a sense of sadness in the air, a darkening of the sky and the smell of ashes in the wind. Somewhere distant, Balor had been reborn, and the last hope for the world had been extinguished.

  But the one message the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons instilled in me was that there is always hope. It's a message I'm going to keep circulating to bring us through these dark times. A new dawn will come. We just have to believe.

  Until next time.

  Chapter One

  The End

  Icy rain blasted across the deserted seafront like stones thrown by a petulant.child. Jack Churchill and Ruth Gallagher kept their heads down, the hoods of their windcheaters up, as they spurred their horses out of the dark countryside. Despite the storm, the ever-present smell of burning was acrid on the back of their throats. Twilight lay heavy on the Cornish landscape, adding to the abiding atmosphere of failure; of a world winding down to die. The heavy clouds rolling across the sea where the lightning flashed in white sheets told them the storm would only grow worse as the night closed in.

  Dead streetlamps lined the road, markers for the abandoned vehicles that were rusting monuments to the death of the twenty-first century. Occasionally they caught a glimpse of candles in windows or smelled smoke from fires in the houses that had hearths; beyond that, there was only the oppression of the growing gloom.

  As they rounded a bend, a light burned brightly in the middle of the road. Surprised, they slowed their horses until they saw the illumination came from an old-fashioned lantern held aloft by a man wrapped in a sou'wester, struggling to keep himself upright in the face of the gale.

  "Who goes there?" he said in a thick Cornish accent.

  "Friends," Church replied, "who don't want to stay out in the night a moment longer than we have to."

  The lantern was raised higher to bring them into its glare. It illuminated the face buried deep in the shadows of the hood: suntanned; grey, bushy beard. He eyed them suspiciously. "Where've you come from?" he yelled above the wind.

  "A long way." Ruth fought to keep her lank hair from her face. "We started off in the Peak District. It's taken us days-"

  "Aye, well, it would." He looked from one to the other, still unsure.

  As the lantern shifted again, Church noticed a shotgun in the crook of his arm. "You haven't got anything to worry about-"

  "You can't trust anyone these days." He nodded towards a pub that glimmered with candlelight a few yards away. "In there."

  Church and Ruth dismounted and led their horses towards the inn. The man followed a few paces behind; Church could feel the shotgun pointed in his direction. But as they tied up their steeds in a makeshift shelter adjoining the pub, the guard relented a little. "Any news?" A pause. "What's the world like out there?"

  Ruth shook the worst of the moisture off her hair. "As bad as you'd expect."

  The guard's shoulders slumped. "Without the telly or the radio it's hard to tell. We hoped-"

  "No," Ruth said bluntly.

  It sounded unduly harsh. Church added sympathetically, "We followed the M5, then the main roads down here. We never ventured into any of the big towns or cities, but-"

  "Nothing's working," the guard finished.

  Church nodded.

  "You better get in the pub," the man said with a sigh. "We haven't had any trouble here in town, but you never know. We've seen what's out there,"-he peered into the night-"and sooner or later they're going to get brave enough to come in."

  "You're on watch all night?" Ruth asked.

  "We do shifts. Everybody's involved. We're trying to keep things going. They'll tell you more in the pub."

  Heads down, they ran from the shelter, but before they reached the door a crack of lightning burst over the sea. Church stopped to stare down the street.

  "What is it?" Ruth blinked away the rain, following his eyes.

  "I thought I saw something in the light."

  "Probably another guard."

  "It was on the rooftops, moving quickly. Looked like…" He paused. "Let's get inside."r />
  A blazing log fire in the grate was the most welcoming sight they had seen in days. With the candles flickering in old wine bottles all around the room, it created a dreamy impression of another time. About thirty people were gathered around. A young mother with a baby watched some children playing near the hearth. Four old men played cribbage in one corner with the grim determination of a life-or-death struggle. Everyone looked up when they entered. In one instant Church took in curiosity, suspicion and fear.

  He was distracted by a glimpse of himself in a mirror as he passed. His dark hair was now almost down to his shoulders, and his close-cropped goatee was a sign he'd given up fighting against predestination; he resembled the future vision he'd had of himself in the Watchtower between the worlds, watching a city burn. His features fell into a naturally troubled expression that served to make him look older. But Ruth didn't look any different. Her long brown hair tumbled in ringlets around her shoulders while her face still looked as pretty and serene as the first time he had seen it. There was something new there, though: an enduring confidence that gave her bearing.

  A burly man in his fifties hurried over, one large hand outstretched. His skin had the ruddiness of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors in all weathers. "Welcoming committee," he said in a loud, deep voice. They each shook his hand in turn. He was Malcolm, a local businessman. "What brings you to Mousehole? Don't get many tourists these days." Although he was friendly enough, the steely scent of fear was palpable in the atmosphere.

  What's happening to us all? Church wondered.

  "We're looking for a safe haven." Ruth's calmness was the perfect antidote; Church could see everyone warm to her instantly. "It's not very pleasant out there." Her understatement made them smile.

  "Any idea what's happened?" Malcolm's eyes showed he was both hopeful and afraid of what her answer might be. "We thought… some kind of nuclear exchange…?"