Darkest hour aom-2

by Mark Chadbourn

  Shavi blew on his hands, then quickly pressed two fingers against the man's neck. "No pulse."

  "What do you think, Tom?" Church said.

  It was only when the Rhymer didn't answer that they realised he wasn't with them. They looked up to see him standing at the top of Ramsay Lane, staring towards the source of the blue light. His expression had grown even more troubled.

  As the others ran back to his side they were shocked to see the whole of Ramsay Lane was covered in ice, as if it had been transported to the middle of the Antarctic. At the bottom of the winding street the blue light glowed brightly. It was bobbing gently in their direction and at the heart of it they thought they could make out a dark figure. As it moved, the ice on the surrounding buildings grew noticeably thicker.

  "What is it?" Church asked in hushed amazement.

  Tom's voice was choked so low Church could barely hear the reply. "The Cailleach Bheur."

  "In English," Laura snapped.

  He looked at her with eyes shocked and wide. "The Blue Hag, spirit of winter. Quickly, now!" He roughly pushed them until they were moving hurriedly back down the Royal Mile, the way they had come. Tom kept them to the middle of the road and only calmed once they had turned off the High Street on to the broad thoroughfare of the North Bridge. Once they were firmly over Waverley Station he slumped against a wall, one hand on his face.

  "What was that?" Church asked forcefully.

  It was a moment or two before Tom answered, "One of the most primal forces of this land."

  Church couldn't help glancing over his shoulder towards the shadowshrouded Old Town. "Fomorii?"

  "No, nor of the Tuatha De Danann. Like the Fabulous Beasts, the Blue Hag and her sisters are a higher power, almost impossible to control. Yet the Fomorii have somehow bent her to their will, like they did with the first Fabulous Beast you encountered. They have her patrolling the Old Town like some guard dog, leaving them free to carry on their business."

  "She's some kind of evil witch?" Veitch said hesitantly.

  Tom turned a cold gaze on him. "If the deepest, coldest, darkest, harshest winter is evil. The Cailleach Bheur is a force of nature. Nothing can survive her touch."

  "You know, hag doesn't sound too frightening when you think about it. It makes you think of bath chairs and whist drives that never end-"

  Tom's glare stopped Laura in her tracks. "The Cailleach Bheur controls the fimbulwinter. If she unleashes it the entire planet will freeze and all life will be destroyed."

  "That sounds like a tremendous power for the Fomorii to influence," Church said.

  "It's a mark of their confidence. Or their arrogance." Tom put his head back and took a deep breath. Some of the strength returned to his face. "It will have taken a tremendous ritual, an appalling sacrifice, for them to control her, and even then it will undoubtedly be for only a short while. They really are playing with fire this time."

  "Bad joke, old man." Laura rattled a stone across the road with her boot. "And this thing has sisters?"

  "Black Annis, the devourer of children, who makes her home in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. And Gentle Annie, who controls the storms."

  "I think I prefer that last one," she said.

  "The name is ironic," Tom said, "and designed to placate her. You wouldn't want to be caught in one of her storms."

  Church recalled Black Annis from his university studies. "But the scholars believe the myth of Black Annis grew out of the Celtic worship of Dann or Ann, the Mother of the Danann."

  "The same provenance," Tom snapped, "but very different."

  The night in the New Town was summery and relaxing, but a blast of wind filled with icy fingers rushed down from the hill, as if to remind them what lay only a short distance away.

  "Then to get to the Fomorii, wherever they might be, we have to go past the Blue Hag," Church said.

  Tom nodded. "And in the minds of the old people, the Cailleach Bheur was another name for Death."

  His voice drifted out on the chill wind that spread out across the city.

  Chapter Four

  The Perilous Bridge

  In daylight the Old Town seemed less oppressive, but there was still an uneasy undercurrent which made them keen to move through it quickly. Witch wondered if the authorities had any idea what was happening among the jumbled clutter of ancient buildings; although it hadn't been sealed off, the tourist office was closed and the crowds that moved in the historic sector were even thinner than on the previous day. The body of the frozen man had been removed.

  From the Royal Mile they stopped to survey their destination. The extinct volcano of Arthur's Seat presented them with the curve of Salisbury Crags, dark and formidable.

  "At least 350 million years since it last erupted," Laura said, consulting the tourist guide she had shoplifted earlier; Church had been forced to return to the bookshop to pay for it. "But with our luck…"

  "This is an ancient landscape," Tom mused. "There were people hunting here nine thousand years ago."

  "Wow, that's even older than you," Laura Jibed.

  He harrumphed under his breath. The others couldn't understand how he always fell for Laura's Jibes. "You know, the Celts recognised the importance of this place," he continued with his back to Laura. "The Castle Rock was a stronghold for the Gododdin tribe, who named it Dunedin, the hill fort. But they weren't here because the high ground was easily defendable. It was that." He pointed to the soaring heights of Arthur's Seat. "The sacred place of power."

  With the help of Laura's guide book, they ignored the steepest paths to the top. Hiring a car for quick passage along the winding route of Queen's Drive, they drove up through the increasingly rough countryside towards the 823-foot summit. At the start of their journey they passed an odd grille set into a wall before being drawn by the placid waters of St. Margaret's Loch, overseen by the grim ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel. Not long after they arrived at Dunsapie Loch, where they found a path with a gentle gradient. The summit presented them with an astonishing view across the city and beyond, to the Borders and Fife. When he saw it, Tom grew still as he quietly studied the homeland he had left so many hundreds of years before, and after a moment or two he wandered off to be alone with his thoughts. Veitch and Shavi set off in a different direction to explore the surroundings.

  "This is amazing." Church was surprised to hear wonder had driven the cynicism out of Laura's voice. "We're right in the middle of the city!"

  "I didn't expect you to be bowled over by lyrical views," Church said.

  She glanced at him from behind her sunglasses. "Shows how much you know. Nature is the only thing worth believing in in this shitty life."

  She slumped down on a rock in her usual couldn't-care-less manner, but Church knew she wanted him to join her. He sat close, feeling her body slowly come to rest against him. "Nature girl, eh?" He mentioned the unusual desktop wallpaper of interlinking trees he had seen on her portable computer not long after they met. "You nearly took my head off when I asked you about that before, but it was an environmental thing, wasn't it?"

  "Oh, you're so sharp. It's an Earth First design."

  "What's that?"

  "A radical environmental group. I'm a member. We believe in taking action where it's called for, like when some developer is ripping up ancient woodland or some farmer's trying to make a fast buck growing GM foods."

  This surprised him. "You're good at keeping secrets, aren't you? I didn't think you believed in anything."

  "Everybody has to have something to believe in. And that's mine." She adjusted her sunglasses slightly, then let her fingers stray to her scar tissue. "So do you still think I have something to do with Little Miss…" She caught herself. "… with Ruth disappearing?"

  "I never said I thought that."

  "No. You never say much of anything that's important." There was a sharp edge of bitterness in her voice.

  "It was just seeing you with all that blood. I knew you weren't getting on-"

&
nbsp; "So naturally I'd go and slit her throat and hide the body. That makes a lot of sense. For the leader of this sorry little clan, you really are a moron." She sighed. "I just want a little trust, you know. Is that too much to ask? I know I've not gone out of my way to endear myself like some perky, eager-to-please telesales girl, but that's my way. You should be able to see through that."

  "I'm sorry. I-"

  "Everybody else can act like a moron, but I have high expectations for you."

  Her words contained a weight of emotion that was in conflict with the blandness of the surface meaning; so much, it was almost too charged for him to deal with. He felt attracted to her, cared for her, certainly, but beyond that he had no idea what she meant to him. The pressure of events made his own deep feelings seem like a foreign language to him.

  He searched deep in himself for some kind of comfort to give her, but all he could do was put his arm around her shoulders and pull her closer. That simple act appeared enough to satisfy her, and that made him feel even more guilty.

  "So what do you reckon our chances are?" Veitch clambered on to an outcropping of rock, his muscular body compensating for the buffeting of the wind; he was fearless despite the precariousness of his position. "You know, of finding her alive?"

  "I can tell you care for her a great deal." Shavi smiled mischievously; he knew his words would plunge Veitch into a clumsy attempt to talk about his emotions.

  "She's a good kid." Veitch kept his gaze fixed on the landscape spread out before them.

  "And you feel that way even though she treated you so harshly for killing her uncle?"

  "I deserved it. I did kill him. Are you going to answer the bleedin' question or not?"

  Shavi squatted down on his haunches and absently began to trace the cracks in the rock. "I have hope."

  "You know, I'm going to kill the bastard who did that to her."

  "Revenge never does much good, Ryan."

  "It makes me feel good. Do you reckon Blondie had anything to do with it?" He glanced over to where Church and Laura were sitting.

  "I do not know. My instinct says probably not."

  "I just want to be doing something. All this sitting around is driving me crazy." He found a pebble and hurled it with venom far out across the landscape. After he had watched the descent of its arc, he said, "After we find her… if we find her… do you think, you know, me and her could ever get together? I know we're chalk and cheese and all that, but you never know, do you?"

  "No, you never know." Shavi watched Veitch fondly; for all his rage and barely repressed violence, at times he seemed like a child; inside him Shavi could sense a good heart beating, filled with values that were almost old-fashioned.

  Veitch laughed. "I don't know why I'm talking about stuff like this to a queen."

  For the first time Shavi sensed there was no edge to the slur; in fact, it was almost good-natured. "I don't-"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say. Men, women, they're all the same to you."

  "And emotions are all the same as well, whoever you care for."

  Veitch eyed him thoughtfully for a second, said nothing.

  Shavi came over and sat next to him on the rock. "There is a belief in many cultures that we create who we are through will alone."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That we are not a product of breeding or environment. That if we wish ourselves to be a hero or a great lover, and wish hard enough, than we will transform ourselves into our heart's desire."

  Veitch thought about this for a second. "And if we mope around thinking we're a nothing, loser, stupid, small-time crook, then that's what we end up as well."

  "Exactly."

  "So why are you telling me this?"

  Shavi shrugged. "I just want to help."

  Veitch looked at him curiously, but before he could speak, Tom wandered up to them along a muddy path worn into the scrub. Shavi and Veitch made no attempt to read his mood; at times his thought processes were as alien as those of the Tuatha De Danann or the Fomorii.

  "'s up?" Veitch asked.

  "I can't find any sign of the gate to the Well." Tom stood next to them, as detached as ever.

  "You didn't have any problem down in Cornwall," Veitch noted.

  "The power here has been dormant for a long time. There are no structures or standing stones to keep it focused. It may even be extinct."

  "So, what? We're wasting our time? Those haunts wouldn't have bothered mentioning the place if that was the case."

  "The Aborigines have a similar view of an earth energy. In fact, it is an extremely widespread cultural belief around the world." Shavi brushed his wind-whipped hair from his eyes. "The Aborigines call it djang, the creative energy from which the world was formed. In their stories of the Dreamtime, djang spirit beings transformed into things in the landscape-rocks and trees, bushes and pools. That residue was always there so the people could tap into their spiritual well at any moment. And like the ley lines we have discussed before, there were dreaming tracks and song lines linking sacred sites. But the djang could also be conjured up with correct, traditional dances and rituals."

  Tom's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Your shamanic abilities are very potent. Do you think you could find the dreaming tracks that would lead us to the source?"

  "If I have that ability I do not know how to access it. Yet."

  Veitch noticed Shavi's faint smile and tapped him firmly on the chestbone. "But you could learn!"

  "Possibly. Given time-"

  Tom shook his head. "We have little time for you to fritter away meditating. You'll need to do what shamans have done throughout history when they were searching for information or guidance."

  Shavi looked at him, puzzled.

  "Ask the spirits of the dead."

  They made their way down from Arthur's Seat in the early afternoon. The day had grown cloudy and thunderheads backing up in the east suggested a storm was approaching. Just off the comforting modernity of Princes Street they located a small cafe where they discussed Tom's suggestion.

  "Why are you asking Shavi to do it?" Church asked Tom between sips of a steaming espresso. "You seemed to have a good-enough handle on it when you called up the spirits at Gairloch."

  "To continually contact the dead allows them to learn to notice you. And then they will never leave you alone." Tom's tone suggested this was not a good thing.

  "So it's all right for the Shav-ster to set himself up for a lifetime's haunting, but you have to protect yourself," Laura said sharply. "You sound like one of those First World War generals sending the boys off to die."

  "I may be remarkably talented," Tom replied acidly, "but Shavi is the one with true shamanistic abilities. He is more able to cope with the repercussions."

  Laura began to protest, but Shavi held up his hand to silence her. "Tom is correct. I fully understand my responsibilities. It is the role of the best able to do all they can for the collective, whatever the outcome."

  "You sure you're all right with this?" Veitch said with a note of concern. "Nobody ought to be bleedin' bullied into doing something they don't want."

  "I will not deny that the prospect is unnerving, but then everything about life at the moment is very frightening. There are no longer any certainties." Shavi smiled to himself. "Perhaps there never were. I have had difficulty adjusting to my new-found abilities." His face darkened. "On the way to Skye, when I gained control of the sea serpent, I felt like my mind had been spiked. That sense of losing control, of finding yourself in something so alien, it was like waking entombed beneath the earth, of giving up your body and never knowing if you could ever get back…" His voice drifted away, but after a moment his smile returned. "It was a little like dying. But now I am resurrected."

  Laura snorted derisively. "You're saying something like that isn't going to screw you up forever? Yeah, right."

  "Only if I let it. The shadow is still there, the fears. But not to do something because of fear is even worse." />
  Laura's expression suggested she didn't understand a word he was saying. She focused on her cappuccino.

  "Okay, it's agreed," Church said. "But where's all this going to take place?"

  "Somewhere suitable," Tom replied. "Somewhere regularly frequented by the dead."

  Laura threw the guide book across the table. "It's all in there," she said with an odd note to her voice. "God help you, you poor bastard."

  Early evening sunlight streamed into the hotel bedroom, catching dust motes in languid flight. Through the open window came the gritty sounds of the city, rumbling and honking with optimism and stability; the normality was powerfully soothing. Church and Laura lounged in the tangled sheets, listening to their subsiding heartbeats, daydreaming of the way the world used to be. The sweat dried slowly on their skin as they held each other silently. For a long while nothing moved.

  Even then Church couldn't find complete peace. The thoughts that had been creeping up on him since that evening on the quayside at Kyleakin had gathered pace; of Niamh and the kiss that had filled his entire being, almost forgotten in the upheaval of Ruth's disappearance; of Laura and her slowly revealing deep affection for him; of his own strained ambivalence. For too long it had seemed like events were uncontrollable and now he was beginning to feel his personal life was going the same way. After so many months trapped in the sphere of his grief and guilt over Marianne's death, his emotional landscape was an uncharted territory. He knew he felt an attraction to Niamh, but whether it was physical or emotional, or even pure curiosity, he wasn't entirely sure. And the same with Laura-why couldn't he read what he felt about her? The only time he was truly in tune with her was during that moment in sex when his conscious mind switched off and the shadow person at the heart of him took over.

  "What are you thinking about?"

  He glanced down to see her eyes ranging over his face. "Life, death, and all things in between."

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  He slid down and threw one arm across his eyes; the darkness was comforting. "What did you think I was thinking about?"

  "It would have been nice if you'd said, me."