Taranis seemed taken aback by her request, and Church, too, was surprised by her forwardness, but the god acceded with a curt nod. Ruth weighed it in her palms, nodded thoughtfully, and headed towards the door that led beneath the deck.
Without Ruth to talk to, and with Niamh distracted, Church felt out of sorts. The other occupants of the ship made his skin crawl, even the ones that most closely resembled humans. There was nothing to see across the water, nothing to do in his cabin, little anywhere to occupy his time. He was reminded of Samuel Johnson's quotation: Going to sea is going to prison, with a chance of drowning besides.
As he made his way along the corridor towards his cabin, his nose wrinkled at an incongruous, sulphurous odour; it was powerful enough to sting his eyes and make the back of his throat burn. It appeared to be emanating from a branching corridor he had never seen before. In the back of his head an insistent alarm was warning him not to venture down it, but if there were a fire on board the alarm would need to be raised. He vacillated for the briefest moment before turning down the offshoot.
The corridor followed a serpentine route that made no sense, even doubling back on itself before ending at a double arched door made from seasoned wood. The handles were big enough to take two hands, made from blackened cast-iron. From behind it he could hear a thunderous pounding. The sulphurous stink was so potent now it almost made him choke.
Cautiously, he opened the door.
The room was stiflingly hot and the acrid smell hung heavily all around. His ears rebelled from the constant clashing of metal on metal, his teeth rang from the reverberations. It was almost impossible to tell the dimensions of the room, for it was as dark as night, with occasional pockets of brilliant light, ruddy and orange, or showering in golden stars. It was a foundry. On board a ship. Nothing in that vessel made sense at all.
The dull glow came from three separate furnaces. The sound of the bellows keeping them incandescent was like the turbulent breathing of a giant. He covered his mouth to keep out the fumes and prepared to back out, until his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he realised he was not alone. Three huge figures worked insistently, pounding glowing shards of metal on anvils as big as a Shetland pony, plunging the worked piece into troughs of water, raising clouds of steam, moving hastily back to thrust tools into the red-hot coals.
Transfixed, he found himself trying to guess what strange implements were being constructed. He was woken from his concentration by a voice that sounded like the roar of another furnace. "Draw closer, Fragile Creature."
His heart thumped in shock, but it was too late to retreat. He moved forward until the glow from the furnace illuminated the shadowy form. It took a while for the figure to stabilise, marking out his position in the hierarchy of the Tuatha De Danann. Though none of it was real, Church smelled the stink of sweat, heavy with potent male hormones. The blacksmith had a rough-hewn face, marked with black stubble and framed by sweaty, lank black hair. He was naked to the waist, his torso and arms rippling with the biggest muscles Church had ever seen. His body gleamed, with sweat running in rivulets down to a wide golden belt girding his waist. In one hand he held a hammer as big as Church's upper body, poised midstrike; in the other he clutched a pair of tongs that gripped a glowing chunk of iron flattened on one edge. Without taking his eyes off Church, he lowered the iron into the trough at his side and was instantly obscured by the steam.
When it had cleared, he said gruffly, "We get few visitors here, in the workshop of the world."
"I smelled the furnace. Thought there was a fire."
The blacksmith's eyes narrowed. "Are you the Brother of Dragons I have been hearing about?" Church introduced himself. The blacksmith gave a nod, his movements slow and heavy. "The cry goes out across the worlds, in death and black destruction, the child answers, full of fury, yet finds no absolution."
"What's that?"
"A memory." With a clatter, he dumped the tongs and the piece of iron on a workbench. "In the times when my workshop armed your world, your people called me Goibhniu, known too, as Govannon." He leaned forward and showed Church a ragged scar across his side. "See my wound." Church wondered why the god didn't lay down his hammer, but when he peered at it closely the edges of it rippled. Church couldn't tell if it were the heat haze from the furnace or if it were Goibhniu's Caraprix in the form that would help him the most. The god saw Church eyeing the tool and held it out before him. "Three strikes make perfection. I can work the stuff of existence, shape worlds or insects. With these hands, anything can be made in a single day, and anything can be destroyed."
Beyond him, in the shadows, Church could make out a tremendous armoury: swords and spears, things that looked like tanks in the form of beetles, and also enormous machines that served no purpose he could recognise.
"And weapons?" Church asked.
"Weapons from which none can recover. Weapons that can destroy the whole of existence."
The words caught in Church's mind. "Weapons that could destroy Balor?"
Goibhniu surveyed him for a long moment, then motioned towards the other figures, who had not paused in their work. "My brothers, as your people knew them: Creidhne and Luchtaine, known as Luchtar, who works wood and metal, as well as the stuff of everything."
Luchtaine had paused from his work at the anvil to shape an unusual piece of wood on a lathe that whirred like a bug. Creidhne was fashioning what appeared to be rivets made of gold. They both looked at Church with eyes filled with flame and smoke.
"Why are you here, on board this ship?" Church felt uneasy, as if he was missing something important and terrible in the scene.
Goibhniu's eyes narrowed; an atmosphere of incipient threat descended on them all. "The Western Isles beckon. These are difficult times."
"Difficult times? You mean the murder of Cormorel?"
Church shrank back as Goibhniu advanced with his hammer before him. Light glimmered off the head and shone like a torchbeam into the depths of the room; Church was shocked to see the beam of light appeared to stretch for miles. And it was packed with weapons as far as he could see. Near to the foundries was some hulking piece of machinery that dwarfed all others, but it was unfinished; waves of menace washed off it. The angle of light changed and the view was lost, but it had been enough.
Goibhniu continued to advance until Church's back was pressed against the door. Fumbling behind him, he found the door handle and flipped it open, almost tumbling out into the corridor. The last thing he heard before Goibhniu slammed the door shut was the god saying forcefully, "Stay away from here, Fragile Creature. We have work to do."
The sweat trickled into the small of Ruth's back as the full force of the noontime sun blazed through the open windows into the cabin, even though she was sitting naked on the floor. Her visit to the kitchen stores had been a success. It was a vaulted hall that went on forever, its air laden with the aroma of spices, fruits, cooking meats and steamed fish, and it was apparent from the demeanour of the dour-faced god in charge that she could find anything she wanted there. Even so, she was surprised to locate so easily such rare items, and ones that were not used in any dishes she knew; but then, who could guess the tastes of the other travellers on Wave Sweeper?
With a borrowed mortar and pestle, she had prepared the ointment in just the right way and now she was filled with a wonderful anticipation; it had been too long.
Soon after came the familiar sensation of separation from her body. There was rushing, like a jet taking off, and then she was out of the window and soaring up into the clear, blue sky. Once her mind had found its equilibrium, she looked down at Wave Sweeper ploughing a white furrow through the greenblue sea far below. The sails billowed, the deck was golden in the sunlight, the crew moving about like ants.
The exhilaration filled her as deeply as the first time she had experienced the spirit flight in the Lake District, her limbs divested of earthly stresses, her mind glowing with a connection to the godhead. It would have been wonderful just to s
tay there, floating amongst the occasional wisp of clouds, but she had a job to do. "Are you there?" she asked the sky.
In response came a beating of wings that was much more powerful than she had anticipated. When she turned to greet the arrival she was even more shocked: her owl familiar was a bird no more. It resembled a man, though with an avian cast to the features: too-large eyes with golden irises, a spiny ridge along its forehead, and its torso and limbs a mix of leathery brown skin like rhino hide and dark feathers. It beat through the air towards her on batlike wings.
The breath caught in her throat. When she had just considered it an owl, albeit with a demonic intelligence, it had not been too threatening, but now it was patently menacing; she felt instinctively that if she did not treat it right, it would tear her apart.
"Is that your true form?" she asked hesitantly.
He smiled contemptuously. "As if there is such a thing!" He could have left it there, but he took pity on her. "It is the way I appear to you, in this place, at this time."
She turned to look at the dim horizon. "I need to return to my world, to see what's happening. Is that possible?"
"All things are possible when the right will is imposed. I told you that."
She recalled their conversations in the cells beneath Edinburgh Castle when he had been a disembodied voice, passing on the information vital to her development in the craft. "I can't believe I've learnt so much, so quickly."
"Others would find it harder. You have been chosen for your abilities."
"I still wonder how much I can actually do."
"You will find your answer, in time." There was a disconcerting note to his voice.
She allowed herself to drift on the air currents, overcome with apprehension. "I'm worried I won't be able to get back here quickly enough." Nina's warning of what would happen if the spirit did not return to the body within a reasonable time weighed heavy on her. "It's so far-"
"Then you should waste no more time." He moved ahead of her, heading higher, towards the sun, then dipped down and made a strange movement with his left hand that stretched his ligaments to their limits. By the time he had finished, a patch of air had taken on a glassy quality; Ruth had the odd impression that it was a pool of water, floating vertically. He flashed a piercing glance that charged her to follow him and then he plunged into the pool and disappeared. She hesitated for only a second before diving.
A sensation like icy rain rushed across her skin and then she was high off the coast of Mousehole, as if, for all their travels on Wave Sweeper, they had not gone anywhere at all. Everything seemed so much duller after her time in T'ir n'a n'Og, the quality of light, the sea smell, the greens of the landscape beyond the shore. Her companion had once again reverted to his owl form, keeping apace with her with broad, powerful wing strokes.
As she moved inland across the late summer fields, her apprehension became more intense. On some rarefied level she was sensing danger ahead.
Increasing her speed, she swooped over the landscape, uncomfortably eyeing the deserted roads and tiny villages that appeared devoid of life. And faster; Dartmoor passed in a brooding, purple-brown blur with memories of the Wild Hunt and senseless slaughter. In Exeter a fire was raging out of control. The grey ribbon of the M5 was a string of abandoned vehicles. And on through Devon, acutely aware how much the land had changed. No more comforting mun danity, supermarket shopping and boring commutes to work, daytime radio and bank managers and accountants. Even with the cursory glance she was giving the rolling greenery below, she could see it had become wilder, a land of mythology where humans were at the mercy of competing species with much greater powers. A place where anything could happen.
Over Wiltshire and Hampshire, closer to the source of the danger. Some towns and villages were wrecked and burning, others reclaimed by strangely wild vegetation. But there were still signs that people were there, either in shock or in hiding: cows, obviously milked and fed, here, clothes hanging on a washing line there. Little markers of hope; it was something. The faint, insistent tugging dragged her eastwards.
The owl had been keeping pace with her, beyond the ability of any true bird, but the beat of its wings began to grow slower until it had dropped back a way, dipping and diving with obvious caution. The reason was clear. On the horizon, London brooded. Although the sun shone down on its sprawling mass, Ruth had a definite sense that it hung in darkness. Her heartbeat speeded and anxiety began to gnaw at the back of her head; an aura of menace was rolling out across the Thames Valley.
It had to have been London, where it all started. The circle had closed.
Yet from that distance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary, apart from the stillness that lay over the approaching M4. She dropped back until she was beside her familiar, adopting its cautious approach. She listened: nothing, but not a serene silence: no birdsong at all. She sniffed the wind and caught the faintest hint of acrid smoke. As the suburban tower blocks and estates fell into view, that ringing sense of menace became almost unbearable, hanging like a thick cloud of poisonous gas over the capital. It was moving out across the land, barely perceptible in its slowness, but inexorable.
"Dare I go closer?" she asked the owl. When there was no reply she took it on herself to advance. She still needed something substantial to tell Church.
She knew she could be seen by the Fomorii in that form-they had spotted her as she watched their black tower being constructed in the Lake District-so she soared higher, desperately wishing for some cloud cover. And with that thought came the realisation that, if she wanted it, she could make it. Under her breath, she mumbled the words the familiar had taught her, making the hand gestures that activated the primal language: words of power in both sound and movement.
The wind changed direction within seconds and soon a few fluffy white clouds were sweeping in from the north. Not too many-she didn't want to draw attention to the sudden change in the weather pattern-but enough to provide a hiding place.
With a slight effort she sent them billowing towards the capital and slipped in amongst them. The air became filled with pins and needles; her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was having a coronary. "It feels bad," she said to her familiar, although she was really talking to herself, "but it doesn't look too bad."
And then the clouds cleared.
She was still beyond the suburbs, but from her vantage point she had a clear view deep into the heart of the city. At first it looked like the outlines of the buildings were rippling as if they weren't fixed. She wondered if it had somehow slipped into T'ir n'a n'Og, where things regularly looked that way. But as she drew closer, she could see it wasn't the outline of the buildings that were changing; something was moving across them.
A wave of revulsion swept through her. London was swarming. It looked like an enormous jarful of spiders had been emptied out on to the buildings and streets. The Fomorii scurried everywhere, at times as though millions upon millions of long-legged insects were racing chaotically over everything, then as if one beast lay across the capital, flowing like oil. Many or one, it didn't matter; London was subsumed. And at the heart of it, an abiding darkness pulsated: Balor, replete in its lair, growing stronger after the strain of rebirth, sucking in energy ready to consume the planet. Beating like a giant heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. She couldn't truly see it, had no real idea of its form, but it was there on a spiritual level, tendrils creeping out from the cold sore. She gagged, despite the fact her corporeal body was a world away.
What made her flesh creep the most was the way that vibrating black mass was pushing out from the centre, reaching into the suburbs, moving out across the country. Nothing could have stood in its path.
"All those people," she gasped. The realisation of what must have happened made her head spin: an atrocity on a grand scale; perhaps millions dead, and more to come.
"We have to get back," she said to the owl. "We can't afford to waste any more time."
But as she turned to depart,
brutal reverberations crashed inside her skull and her body doubled up with pain. Looking back she saw, rising up above the skyscrapers of the City, an area of infinite darkness, blacker even than deepest space, cold and sucking. It was impossible to tell if it was truly happening in the real world or if it was a metaphor imprinted on a higher level of consciousness, but it filled her with utmost dread. It was alive, and it had an intelligence so vile her mind screamed at even the slightest brush with it.
Balor. The name tolled like a funereal bell deep in her head.
And it rose up and up, bigger than the city, bigger than all existence. How can we beat something like that? she thought with the bitter sting of despair. And still it rose, and washing off it came waves of malignancy. And then, as it had in the dream that was not a dream in Mousehole, an eye opened in that black cloud, an eye that was not an eye, though she characterised it as such. And it focused its attention on her and she thought she was about to go mad with fear.
It could see her there, hidden in the clouds, miles away. It could see her anywhere. But worse than that, it recognised her.
The shock dislocated her thoughts; it was already in motion before she registered it was coming for her.
A wide flailing disrupted the air currents next to her. Her familiar was thrashing and screaming, an owl, a ball of feathers, then the owl man, and then something infinitely worse, moving rapidly backwards and forwards across the spectrum of its appearance in a terrible panic.
In terror, she attempted to flee, only to realise she couldn't move. The evil had her in some invisible grip, holding her steady like a fish on a line. Until it reached her.
Her consciousness finally burst from whatever spell it was under, and suddenly she was thinking at lightning speed. "Help me!" she yelled, but the owl was already moving away from her, every wing beat a flurry of desperation.
She tried to flee once more, but it was as if her limbs, or her mind, was pinned; no amount of effort could move her. Behind her, the monstrous gravity of the thing grew more powerful.
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