Darkest hour aom-2

by Mark Chadbourn

  "There's no one anywhere near here," Veitch protested. "We just going to sit around till somebody turns up?"

  "No," Tom replied. "We are going to summon the Gruagaich and petition them for aid."

  There was suspicion in all their faces, to which Church gave voice. "We've had enough of being manipulated by any supernatural force that happens to cross our path-"

  "Don't worry," Tom interjected sharply. "This time we turn to our own."

  "What do you mean?"

  Tom motioned to the stones. "This has been a place of summoning for as long as people have settled in the area. You see that stone over there? It is the clack na Gruagaich, one of several by that name scattered around Scotland. This site is hardly known by anyone outside the locals, who would leave an offering in its hollow for the spirits they knew could be contacted here-mainly milk, for protection of the cattle. They believed the spirits were brownies or some other daoine- sith." He smiled contemptuously. "The good neighbours, their euphemistic term for the beings of Otherworld, or Elfame as they called it. Faerie."

  "But they weren't?"

  "No. The clue is in the name. Gruagaich. Long-haired ones." He watched the sun for a long moment. Only a thin arc was visible now above the silhouetted hills. "The first among the old tribes. The people who took up the mantle of the power discovered by the ones who put up these stones. The Celts."

  After a long pause, Veitch said doubtfully, "You're going to talk to ghosts?"

  "We will summon the Celtic dead," Tom stated emphatically.

  Ruth's brow knit. "What can they know that could help us?"

  "In the spirit world, all vistas are open. And these are not just any spirits. They are linked to you through time, the first Brothers and Sisters of Dragons."

  Tom's words sent a shiver running through all of them just as the sun slipped completely below the horizon and darkness swept across the land. But a second later, a cloud drifted away and the moon cast its silver light on the circle, limning every stone, throwing long shadows across the grass.

  "It's time," Tom said.

  From his left pocket, he took a plastic bag which appeared to contain pieces of twig and dried vegetable matter. "The sacred mushroom," he said.

  "You're a regular drugstore." Laura's normally confident tones were softened by apprehension. "I know where to come when I want to get blasted."

  Tom ignored her. He took a handful of the psychoactive mushrooms from the bag and moved among them, placing small quantities in their mouths. They chewed the rubbery, metallic-tasting pieces and swallowed with distaste.

  Tom ingested several himself, then took out the battered tin in which he kept his hash and meticulously constructed a joint. When he was done, he lit it and inhaled before walking over to the altar stone. There, he blew out the smoke gently. It rose like a ghost in the moonlight. Using his lighter, he charred the edge of the remaining hash and crumbled some of it into the hollow on the stone. Then, head bowed, he took a few paces back and sat cross-legged, drawing the pungent smoke deep inside him.

  Veitch and Laura shifted uneasily, but Shavi, Church and Ruth were overcome by an atmosphere of sanctity. On some level they couldn't quite comprehend, they sensed a change begin to take place around them, as if the air itself were growing heavier, filled with the weight of what was to come. Church swallowed and tasted iron filings in his mouth; his heart began to beat faster as a tingling sensation ran from his groin along his spine to his head. He wondered how much was the drugs and how much was actually happening.

  It felt like they waited for an age, feeling the wind gently brush their skin, filled with the summery scent of the warm pine forests. But then they noticed a distant movement away in the night. Initially it seemed to be only moonshadows on the rolling terrain, except it became too insistent; the blurred edges of the shadows hardened, the undulating movement became more defined into smaller units. Slowly, Church scanned the area, squinting to draw form from the gloom. Another shiver ran through him when the images finally took shape.

  Figures were separating themselves from the landscape in a wide arc, advancing slowly on the stone; he estimated there must have been about a hundred of them, mostly men, but some women. At first they were just silhouettes against a lighter dark, but in their eerie, silent advance, details began to emerge. Long, dark hair; skin that was swarthy where visible but in the main covered by what appeared to be mud, as if they had camouflaged themselves for guerrilla warfare; with the furs and hides that kept them warm and the way they moved, in a low, loping way, they resembled some odd half-beast creatures.

  Finally they came to a halt thirty feet from the stone. The breeze blew among them, rustling hair and furs, but they were so unmoving in the gloom they merged with the stones and the outcropping rocks. It was impossible to discern their faces; pools of shadows filled their eye sockets, leaving Church and the others with the horrible sensation that if the shadows cleared, there would be no eyes there at all. The night was suddenly alive with anxiety and danger; Church knew in some instinctive way that however insubstantial the revenants appeared, they were not passive creatures; he couldn't shake the feeling that, with the wrong word or movement, they would attack. From the corner of his eye he could see the others staring at Tom, silently urging him to break the oppressive mood.

  After what felt like an age, Tom rose to address the dark assembly; he held out his hands in the universal sign of friendly greeting.

  "What do you want, teacher?"

  The voice seemed to be in Church's head. The words rumbled with a strange accent, but they were clearly modern English, although he couldn't begin to understand how the communication was taking place. One of the figures moved out of the mass. He didn't appear to walk; it was almost as if, in the blink of Church's eyelid, the figure had shifted forwards several feet. There was nothing about him that signified he was a leader or spokesman.

  "We come in this time of crisis to call upon your great wisdom, revered ancestor." Tom's head was slightly bowed in respect.

  "It must be a matter of import to summon us back from the Grim Lands." There was a worrying note in the words, but then the speaker inclined his head slightly towards Church and the others and his tone became more respectful. "I sense in these the shimmering blue fire of the Great Mother Bridgit."

  "They are Brothers and Sisters of Dragons."

  The Celt bowed his head. "The fire of life has found a good home."

  Church felt a sudden surge in his heart. In the Celt's words was a regard and acceptance that cut through his own fears about his abilities.

  "In our hearts and spirits, we make our offerings," Tom continued. "Will you hear me?"

  "We know you too, brother. Your kind administered to us from the sacred groves. It is good to know the lore survives the years. We will hear you."

  Church saw the tension go out of Tom's shoulders. "You will be aware, as in the first days, that there is darkness on the land and blood in the wind. The Fomorii have returned." A tremor seemed to run through the throng; Church's heightened senses felt a wave of threat. "They wish to trap the people in the Eternal Night. That must never happen again. We can no longer rely on the comfort of the Children of Danu. But, as in your days, though the arm is weak, the heart is strong. Yet, still, we need something more to aid us in our struggle. Guide us with your wisdom."

  There was a moment of hanging tension when Church thought the spirits weren't going to answer. Then: "You must find the Luck of the Land if you are ever to unleash the true power of the people."

  "What is the Luck of the Land?"

  Silence; just the soughing of the wind. Tom chewed on his lip. "Then tell me this, I beseech you: in the Grim Lands, all existence is laid out before you. Where is the Fomorii nest where Balor will be reborn?"

  "The Heart of Shadows will rejoin this world betwixt here and there, but he will find his home where the Luck of the Land is kept."

  Church could sense Tom fighting with his normally irritable nature at th
eir opaque answers, but the Rhymer knew a word out of line would not only ruin their opportunity to discover more information, it could prove fatal to them. The spirits may once have been kin, Church thought, but their time in what they called the Grim Lands had changed them immeasureably; he didn't want to antagonise them at all. Cautiously scanning the massed ranks for any sign of attack, he saw a shape that seemed familiar. It was only a fleeting glimpse of a profile against the starlit sky, but it struck a chord with him. He lost it almost instantly and before he had chance to seek it out again, Tom's measured tones distracted him.

  "Revered ancestors, is there any guidance you can give us which will aid us in our great task? Anything at all?"

  "Wise teacher, in my words lies your salvation. You require more? Then heed this: for the source of threat, look within as well as without. For direction, follow your hearts south to the city of the Well of Fire. For success in battle, cleanse the darkness from the spirit of your chieftain. And remember this: an ally already stands tall among the Children of Danu. Treat him with respect to keep his comfort close. Now, your offering was gratefully received, but it will buy no more of my patience. If you require anything else, you must pay for it with a life. Do you wish to proceed?"

  Suddenly, the arc of Celts seemed too close, ready to cut off any retreat. As Church looked round, they seemed to waver like an image in a heat haze and for a moment he sensed something very like hunger; anxiety began to turn to fear deep in the pit of his stomach.

  "Revered ancestor, we have been enlightened by your wisdom," Tom began. "And we offer our gracious thanks for your time. We shall delay you no more. We wish you well on your return to the Grim Lands."

  The Celt who had addressed them lowered his head slightly in parting and, for the briefest instant, the shadows that covered his eyes seemed to clear; what Church glimpsed there made his mind squirm and he had to stop himself fleeing back to the campfire.

  It was several minutes after the Celts had melted back into the landscape before anyone spoke. It was as if they were coming out of a dream, one tinged with incipient menace where strange truths had been made known, so strange that they could barely be comprehended upon awakening. The feeling was heightened when they realised they could only hazily remember what they had seen, although the words still rang out in their minds.

  "Did we actually experience that, or was it the mushrooms?" Ruth asked. Church saw she was gripping her hands together to prevent them shaking.

  "A little of both," Tom replied.

  Shavi nodded in agreement. "The mushrooms are the key to opening the doors of perception."

  Tom smiled suddenly. "I remember seeing Jim Morrison perform in Florida-"

  "Most old gits talk about the war," Laura interrupted. "We get reminiscences of the happy hippie trail. Now can we get back to the fire-it's freezing out here."

  Veitch pulled out a bottle of single malt he'd found in the grocery store on Kyleakin and they drank it from plastic cups around the fire.

  "So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that was just a load of cryptic bollocks that wasted our time, right?" Although Laura sat next to Church, she was careful not to make the others feel uncomfortable by showing any sign of her affection for him, though Church had sensed an obvious proprietary instinct in the way she had taken her seat just as Ruth was walking up.

  Tom shook his head. "They didn't make it easy for us, but all the information they offered is vital."

  "Except we probably won't crack the code until it's too late," Church noted. "What's the Luck of the Land?"

  "I have no idea. The Celts believed it was dangerous to name a sacred thing by its true name, which is why these exercises end up in irritating circumlocution." Tom took a deep swig of the whisky and then said tartly, "But we can pull some pearls from the verbal ordure. The city of the Well of Fire is Edinburgh. There's an extinct volcanic feature in the city called Arthur's Seat."

  "More Arthurian code for a site linked to the earth power?" Church mused.

  "It's a very powerful source, the most powerful in Scotland. The Well lies under Arthur's Seat."

  "Then that's where we've got to go. Shouldn't take too long from here." Veitch lay back with his hands behind his head.

  "The ally is obviously Cernunnos." Ruth examined the mark that had been burned into the flesh of her hand by the nature god. She had a sudden flashback to the rainswept night in Manorbier, the terrifying power she had seen in the being as its body melted and changed like oil on water.

  "Your ally," Veitch noted. "You're his big pal."

  "As long as I'm with you, he's with you. But how are we supposed to show him respect?"

  "These beings," Shavi mused, "seem to expect deference from those beneath them in the hierarchy of power."

  "I'll just tug my forelock in front of the toffs," Veitch sneered. "Blimey, talk about things being the same all over."

  "The Celts rightly believed islands were prime places for carrying out rituals," Tom stated. "Not far from here, in Loch Maree, there's an island called Eilean Maree, with a sacred grove dedicated to the Tuatha De Danann, where we can make an offering to-"

  "How do you know all these things, wise teacher?" Laura asked pointedly.

  Shavi eyed Tom incisively. "Tom knows all of the lore of the Celts, is that not right? You told us you were tutored by the people of the Bone Inspector-"

  "And so the knowledge of being a freak is passed down," Laura sniffed.

  "And the Bone Inspector spoke of his people, an unbroken line of guardians of the old places stretching back through history," Shavi continued.

  Church threw another branch on the fire. "Well, we all know what cleansing the darkness from the chieftain means," he added sombrely, "though a little guidance on how to go about it wouldn't have gone amiss."

  "There was one other thing," Ruth said. "What did for the source of the threat, look within as well as without mean?"

  "As if you don't know." Laura stared deep into the heart of the fire. "It means one of us is looking to earn thirty pieces of silver."

  After the others had retired to their tents, Church and Laura sat warming themselves by the dying embers. In the midst of all the chaos and tension, Church felt remarkably comforted to have Laura curled up next to him. With his arm around her and her head on his shoulder, the emotional closeness to another human filled him with a sense of well-being.

  "This is what it's all about," he muttered to himself.

  "You're talking to yourself again."

  Although they were entwined, Laura still seemed a little stiff and distant. He had started to strip away the many defences she had erected to protect herself, but he knew it would be a long time before she gave her inner self up freely. In fact, the more he got to know her, the more he felt the acid-tongued, confident, aggressive Laura was a character that had been completely constructed, and whatever lay within was something he might not recognise at all. But that sense of protecting the vulnerable heart of their being was something they shared, and possibly what had attracted them in the first place.

  "So this Marianne must have been a big thing in your life," she said after a long period of introspection.

  "We'd been together a long time. We were going to get married. So, yes, she was a big thing."

  "I suppose that explains why you were knocked so out of whack when she died. Do you think you'll ever get over it?"

  "I don't think anybody ever gets over something like that. You just learn to accommodate it."

  She thought about this for a moment, then said, "What was she like?"

  "Oh, I don't know-"

  "Go on, I want to know. Was she a good person?"

  "I suppose. I never really thought of her like that. She was pretty much a malice-free zone. But she had her bad qualities-who doesn't?"

  "Yeah, right. But it's a balancing act, isn't it? There aren't any real goodies or baddies. Most people manage to keep that scale just right, a little bit up, a little bit down, over the course of a life.
And just a few go up one side or the other." She dug him sharply in the ribs with her elbow. "Christ, it's like getting blood out of a stone with you."

  "I think that's a black kettle and pot situation." He sighed. "She was smart. She read a lot. She liked to talk about ideas, about things that mattered. She made me laugh. She took the piss out of me when I was being pompous. She didn't take the piss out of me when I was talking about a list of dreary finds from some boring dig in Somerset. She could argue the case for northern soul when I was banging on about guitar music. She'd watch Star Wars with me and wouldn't beg me to watch jean de Florette with her. And she allowed me to be weak." He paused, feeling the rawness of some of the emotions that were surfacing. "Lifes good as long as you don't weaken-that's a pretty good rule of thumb. We all have to keep up a resilient front, but you know you've found someone good when you can let the barriers down to show that weak, pathetic, characterdestroying side of you, that part that you have to let out every now and then or go mad, but you normally have to do in the privacy of your room." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Is that good enough for you?"

  "It'll do. For now."

  "Why did you want to know? For the sake of comparison?"

  "No. What's gone is gone. That doesn't bother me. But you can find out a lot about someone from the way they view the love of their life."

  Her words made him give pause. "Very lateral thinking. So what did you find out?"

  "You don't think I'm going to tell you, do you?"

  "Okay. Tell me about the love of your life."

  She laughed. "You must think I'm a real sucker. Sorry, pal, my past is a closed book."

  He pulled her in tight and gave her scalp a monkey scrub.

  "Ow! Just because you can't compete with my intellect." She pinched him hard until Veitch hollered from the depths of his tent for them to be quiet. Then they giggled like schoolchildren and continued their conversation in hushed tones.

  "So," Church said eventually, "do you and I get a happy ending, do you think?"