Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  The conversation came to an abrupt halt when Veitch saw the light. It floated among the trees like a golden globe, slowly and silently, almost hypnotic in their drunkeness. But they had seen too much to accept any phenomenon at face value; threats lurked in even the most mundane sight. Veitch leapt to his feet instantly, his sword gripped firmly. Church and Shavi joined him a second later.

  “What is it?” Ruth whispered, but Veitch waved her silent.

  The globe bobbed and weaved directly towards them, and as it drew closer they realised it wasn’t alone. They could hear a faint, melodious singing, and although they couldn’t understand the words, the music made them feel like they were filled with honey. The sword gradually fell to Veitch’s side. Only Tom remained alert.

  A second later they spied the outline of two figures approaching through the shadows. The globe was a lantern one of them was holding to light the way. The singing grew louder as they neared, and it seemed like it was a song of joy with the world, of great experiences savoured, of drinking in all life had to offer.

  Veitch’s languor disappeared the moment the two arrivals stepped into the light from the campfire. They were both of the Tuatha De Danann, their skin faintly golden, their features breathtakingly beautiful. They were obviously of the caste closest to humans, for none of them felt the squirming alien thoughts in their heads or experienced the warping perception caused by the more powerful of the gods.

  One of the visitors had long, flowing fair hair and a face which seemed to permanently beam. The other looked more sensitive and thoughtful; his hair was tied in a ponytail. They both wore loose-fitting blousons open to the waist, tight breeches and boots like movie buccaneers.

  “What have we here? Fragile Creatures? Alone in the woods at night?” The smiling one turned his open face from one to the other and they all found themselves smiling in return. “Do you not realise the seasons have changed? The dark is no longer a time for Fragile Creatures to walk abroad.”

  “We are not as fragile as you think.” Tom stepped from behind Shavi to present himself to the visitors.

  “True Thomas!” His smile grew broader, if that were possible. “We have missed your rhymes in the Far Country. How have you fared, good Thomas?”

  “As well as could be expected, Cormorel, under the circumstances.” Tom gestured to the others. “You have heard of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons?”

  Cormorel looked surprised for an instant, but then the smile returned and he bowed his head, politely and formally. “It is indeed a great honour to meet the blood-champions of the Fixed Lands. The fame of the Pendragon Spirit’s vessels has extended even unto our home. Hail, Quincunx. The faithi have spoke proudly of the five who are one hero.”

  Veitch surveyed the two new arrivals suspiciously, poised to move at the slightest sign of danger. Church was afraid Veitch’s barely contained rage would force an unnecessary confrontation, until he realised his friend was surreptitiously watching Tom for his lead.

  “This is my good friend and fellow traveller, Baccharus,” Cormorel continued. The other golden one’s bow was more clipped than that of his colleague.

  Church and the others introduced themselves hesitantly. Tom motioned to the campfire. “Will you join us?”

  “Gladly, True Thomas. It has been too long since we enjoyed the company of people.” Cormorel pronounced the last word as if it were alien to him.

  Cormorel and Baccharus sat together next to the fire, seemingly revelling in the event. Church took a position next to them with Tom on the other side, while the others gathered around the rest of the fire with varying degrees of discomfort; only Shavi seemed truly at ease.

  Church picked up his beer to take a sip, then noticed Cormorel’s eyes following his hand. “Would you like a drink?” Church said. “Can you drink?”

  “We can eat, drink, make merry in many ways.” Cormorel eyed Ruth and Laura slyly. “Of course, we may not appreciate the sensations in quite the same way as you Fragile Creatures. But it is the experience we seek, the keys to existence.” Church opened two cans for him and Baccharus, which they took gratefully. They sniffed the drink, sipped at it cautiously, then nodded to each other. “When we were last here there was something made of honey,” Cormorel noted thoughtfully. “This is more to my palate.”

  “What brings you here, Cormorel?” Tom asked.

  “We are reacquainting ourselves with the Fixed Lands, True Thomas. It always held a special place in our hearts. We have been denied its pleasures for too long.”

  Baccharus leaned forward and said quietly, “Here, with your truncated existence, lives burn brightly. Experience is savoured. There is a potency which we find invigorating.”

  “And you are all so much fun!” Cormorel added with a flourish.

  “Glad we entertain you,” Veitch muttered coldly. If Cormorel and Baccharus noticed the offence in his voice, they didn’t show it.

  “We are revisiting the places we knew before the Sundering,” Baccharus said, “but so much has changed. The air is filled with unpleasant particles. The water in the rivers is sour. Even the trees are in pain. I can hear the dryads whispering their distress as I pass. You have not fared well without us.”

  “Things haven’t gone well on a lot of fronts,” Church agreed. Baccharus’ words touched a nerve with him that made him uncomfortable. Was humanity really better off when the gods ruled over them?

  Cormorel suddenly noticed Ruth staring at him curiously. “What is it?” he asked.

  “We don’t know anything about you,” she replied. “The only ones of your kind we’ve met before weren’t exactly easy to talk to.”

  “And as you can see,” Cormorel said, raising his hands, “we are not all cut from the same cloth.”

  “Tell us about you, then. About your people. Where you come from, what excites you.” Church recognised the incisive gleam in her eye; she was using her lawyerly skills to extract information which might be of use to them later.

  “You are trying to define us in your terms and we cannot be defined. We simply are. A part of the universe and outside the universe, outside of time and all reality. We move among the stars, slipping between moments. As great as the fabric of existence, as fluid as thought.” He winked at Tom. “It is hard to know us, eh, True Thomas? However long you spend at our side.”

  “But you seem comfortable with the way we perceive reality,” Ruth continued, undeterred. “Try to express it in terms which make sense to us.”

  Cormorel nodded thoughtfully. “Then I will try to tell you of the glory and the wonder and the anguish and the pain. Of a race cut adrift from its home, condemned to wander existence for all time.” His voice took on a mournful quality which made their hearts ache; there was something in the way the Tuatha De Danann manipulated sound which had a dramatic effect on human emotions; Church wondered if this explained his confused feelings for Niamh. “We have always been the Golden Ones. There when the universe winked into life. And we will be there when it finally whispers out. Our storytellers spin vast accounts of our days when all was well with Creation and we resided in four cities of wonder. It is the arch-memory, the homeland, to which we all dream of returning. We have never found it in our wanderings.” His voice grew sadder still. “And I for one would say we probably never will. But the Far Lands, with their ebb and flow, and, strangely, the Fixed Lands too, are the closest in our hearts. And so we move between one and the other, and we stay and go, and we yearn. And though we remember our home and see the connections, we are always an echo away. That is our curse. Never to be at peace. We exist in the great turn of the universe. Our lives are lived at the heart of everything. And so our joys are great, and our sorrows too.” He fixed a sad eye on Ruth. “Can you understand what it is never to have the only thing that makes you whole? Without our home, we cannot understand our place in the scheme of things. We are bereft. That is our character.”

  “That is everybody’s character,” Shavi said.

  Baccharus b
egan to sing in their lyrical, alien tongue; there was so much sadness in every syllable they felt as if their chests were being crushed by despair. Their heads bowed as one, and in that song they finally felt the true pain of the Tuatha lle Danann.

  When the last note of Baccharus’ magical singing finally faded away, there was a brief moment of ringing silence, and then Cormorel brightened instantly. “Come. We have driven the sadness from our being for a time and now we are free to drink deep!” He raised his beer and emptied the can, letting forth an enormous belch. Church handed him another one, which he glugged eagerly.

  “Now let me tell you of joy and wonder!” he continued. “Would you like to hear how our greatest warriors crushed the Night Walkers beneath their heel at the second battle of Magh Tuireadh? Or perhaps a personal tale of my great wassailing? Or perhaps something of the Fragile Creatures who preceded you?” He gave a strange, weighted smile that none of them could quite understand. “Not so fragile, some of them. For your breed at least. They did not accept us with kindness in the early days.”

  “I heard they resisted you quite forcefully,” Tom noted.

  Cormorel mused on this for a moment. “They were slow to appreciate the true order of things. They were, I think, quite brutal in spirit. There was something of the Night Walkers about them.”

  “A matter of perception, I would say,” Tom persisted.

  Cormorel didn’t seem offended by his tone. “We crushed them in the end, you know.”

  Tom nodded. “Yet they still exert an influence. Knowledge encoded in the landscape for future generations to decipher. Information to be used to resist you.” Church and the others all looked at Tom, but he wouldn’t meet their eyes. “Their bravery is beyond question, but perhaps you have underestimated their intelligence. They were playing a very long game.” Tom let the words hang, but it was obvious he was not going to elucidate.

  Cormorel maintained a curious expression for a moment, then shrugged as if it were nothing, but Church could tell Tom’s comments were still playing in his mind.

  “Tell me why some of you are almost like us and some are just … unknowable,” Ruth said.

  Cormorel smiled condescendingly. “None of us are truly like you.”

  Baccharus held up his hand to silence his partner. “No, that is a good question. Some of us are very like the Fragile Creatures, if only in our joys and sorrows. How many of our brethren would take pleasure in this, here, tonight, around this fire? Yet to me this is a moment of great pleasure, to be savoured and discussed at length once we are back in the Far Lands.” He smiled sweetly. “We love our stories. They are the glue that holds the universe together.”

  Tom bent forward to intrude in the conversation once again. “There is a hierarchy among the Tuatha De Danann. They have a very complex society which is layered depending upon the power they wield. At the top is the First Family. At the bottom …” He motioned towards Cormorel and Baccharus.

  Church flinched; it sounded distinctly like an insult. Cormorel seemed to feel the same way, for he eyed Tom askance as he sipped his beer.

  “Do you hold no grudges, True Thomas, for the time you spent with us?” he asked pointedly.

  “I have learned to be at peace with my situation.”

  Cormorel nodded. “That is not quite an answer to my question, but I will accept it nonetheless.” His smile grew tight. “Did you know, True Thomas, your Queen has returned to her court under Tom-na-hurich, the Hill of Yews? Your white charger still resides there, as vital as the last day you saw him.” His eyes never left Tom’s face.

  Tom’s face remained as emotionless as ever, but Church recognised a faint hardening. “The point I was making,” he continued, turning to the others, “is that power seems to come with the extent of time they have existed, and some of the Tuatha De Danann are much more powerful and alien than us. Although they say they have all existed since the dawn of time, it would appear that some are much older than the others. Dagda, the Allfather, was there at the beginning, and he has no connection to us at all. These two, I believe, came later.”

  “Then perhaps there is an evolution, even among the gods,” Shavi mused.

  Church was struck with a moment of clarity. “And perhaps one day we will evolve to be like the Danann.”

  Cormorel laughed faintly, patronisingly. “And perhaps the arc of sky will rain diamonds.”

  “It is unwise to be so arrogant, Cormorel,” Baccharus said. “Though it is easy to accept our place in the universe, we of all races should know there is a cycle to everything. Powers rise and fall, influences ebb and flow. And the Fragile Creatures have shown their resilience in the face of the uncaring hand of existence. You see these here, you know the power they represent.”

  Cormorel shrugged dismissively. “You are a dreamer, Baccharus.”

  In the brief lull that followed, Church saw his opportunity. “How are you dealing with the Fomorii?”

  Cormorel took the whisky and sipped it, smacking his lips. “They leave us alone. We do not bother them,” he said as he passed the bottle on.

  “They won’t leave you alone for long. They were trying to bring Balor back. Now we’ve stopped them they’ll just turn to something else. And you could be the target next time.”

  “Oh, most certainly. And when they dare raise their hands against us, we shall strike them down.”

  Church couldn’t believe Cormorel’s arrogance. “Surely it would be better to attack first, before they can-“

  “There are too many things to do, too many places to visit here in this world that has been denied us. We need to be making merry, drinking this fine …” He held up the can, then shook his head when he couldn’t summon a word to describe it.

  “They beat you once before. When they first emerged into this world.”

  Cormorel’s gaze lay on Church coldly. “We did not fully realise the extent of their treachery. Now we are prepared.” He sighed, his annoyance dissipating quickly. “However much I meet people, I find it hard to understand your inner workings. You have so little time and indulge in so little enjoyment. But you are entertaining, for all your foibles. We will continue to try to understand you.”

  “Have you heard what the Fomorii are doing now?” Shavi asked.

  Cormorel smiled and shook his head. “They may burrow into the deep, dark earth and wrap themselves in shadows until the stars fall, for all I am concerned. The Night Walkers are a poisonous brood, given to plotting and hating, but they are wise and would not seek to challenge us unnecessarily. We can afford to leave them alone.” He peered at Church, his brow furrowed. “Strangely, I see you have the taint of the Fomorii about you.”

  Church explained how the Fomorii had infected him with the Kiss of Frost and how, although the Roisin Dubh had been destroyed, some of its dark power still lay within him.

  Cormorel shook his head sadly. “Very unwise, Brother of Dragons. You will not find any of the Golden Ones aiding you until you have expunged that taint.” He wrinkled his nose as if there were a bad smell.

  “And how do I do that?” Church asked.

  Cormorel shrugged. “Perhaps if you travelled to the Western Isles, immersed yourself in the Pool of Wishes …” His voice trailed off; the question was obviously of no interest to him. “Now,” he said animatedly, “have we more drink? This is a celebration, not a conference!”

  They drank deep into the night, with Cormorel and Baccharus taking it in turns to entertain with wild songs and great stories which carried with them the vast movement of the depths of the ocean or the shifting of tectonic plates. Church and the others were entranced with stories of the four lost cities of wonders, of the many, deep, mysterious mythologies which the Tuatha De Danann kept close to their heart, of puzzles and tricks, great battles and terrible failures, of passion and love, cruelty and hatred. The Tuatha De Danann, for all their alienness, were a race of powerful emotions and Church and the others could not help but be awed by the things they heard. Even Veitch gave in to
a broad grin during one song, while Laura had to hide the tears that came to her eyes during another particularly sad lay. Only Tom remained impassive throughout.

  And when the birdsong rose in earnest and the shadows receded at the first lick of dawn, Cormorel and Baccharus stood up and bowed, thanking the others profusely and politely for their hospitality.

  “The next time you are in the Far Lands we will return the favour,” Cormorel said.

  “I fear not,” Tom interjected.

  Cormorel eyed him cunningly and nodded, but said nothing. And then the two of them turned and set off through the woods, their melodious singing eventually fading into the sounds of nature awakening.

  “They were very charming,” Ruth said. “The stories they told were wonderful. You could yearn for everything they’ve experienced, the sights they’ve seen. Otherworld could be such a magical place to live.”

  Tom turned his back on them and headed towards the tents. “Yes, and that is the greatest danger of all.”

  chapter eleven

  along darker roads

  (heir dreams were filled with spires of silver and gold, of giants who cupped spinning suns in their palms, of wonders so bright and startling they could not bring them back to the world of waking. When they did finally emerge from their tents, dry-mouthed and thick-headed, the day seemed more vital than even the blazing sun and clear blue sky promised. They bathed in the cool, rushing river, ate a lazy lunch of beans on toast and drank tea while gently reminding each other of the stories they had been told, like old friends remembering favoured times.

  By 1 p.m., Veitch was starting to get anxious. He scanned the trees continuously, and while the others laughingly told him to unwind, he refused to rest. “We’ve been here too long,” he said, packing his bag. Using belts and rope and a few other items they’d picked up in town the previous day, he made a makeshift harness to hold his sword and crossbow. His jacket hung over it awkwardly-he looked like a hunchback, Laura gibed from afar-but he could reach the weapons easily.