Darkest hour aom-2

by Mark Chadbourn

  He slipped an arm round her shoulder; she didn't flinch. "It's okay," he said.

  Her eyes sparkled when she looked up at him; was that a connection he saw? He felt warmth rise up into his cheeks. "You were great," she said. "You were like a rock. I wouldn't have got through it without you."

  The irony made him wince, but he couldn't break the illusion. For the first time she thought he was somebody who was worth something, who was capable, decent. But the conflict made him feel like a cheat. Even when he was getting what he wanted, his guilt and self-loathing got in the way. "We've still got a way to go yet. That was the easy bit," he said flippantly.

  Before she could answer, her attention was distracted by something in the sky towards the bottom of the Royal Mile. The haar had started to drift away from that area and the black, star-sprinkled sky was clear.

  "What is it?" Veitch asked.

  "I don't know. I thought I saw something." She scanned the sky uneasily. "There it is again!" she said, pointing. The heavens were fleetingly lit by a strange, blue glow. In it, dark shapes seemed to be moving. "What do you think?"

  "I don't know." Veitch had a sudden frisson which he couldn't explain. "But I reckon we need to get to the rendezvous site pronto."

  The air was rushing so fast it ripped the breath from Church's mouth; his stomach flipped and twisted. The initial shock and terror was wiped away in a second by the helter-skelter sensations and the adrenalin that surged through him; the whole world seemed to be moving so fast he didn't have a chance to think. Beneath him, above him, all around him was darkness so intense he could have been plunging through space. Some hidden, rational part of him was scanning the shadows for any sign that could prepare him for the terrible moment of impact and it was that which caught the faint glimmer of blue light far, far away in the acheronian tunnel. It resembled a slight rip in black silk and it was growing wider, as if the fabric were rending.

  The sight mesmerised him, driving out all other sensations, and his mind suddenly began to churn out notions to fill the vaccuum. It's the blue fire, he thought. Is that the bottom?

  But it didn't look like the bottom; the well appeared to carry on past the growing speck of light. It grew wider still, the rate of tear increasing rapidly. The locket did it! he realised.

  And at that moment the blue fire suddenly burst through. It was like a geyser rushing up towards him. He had only a split second to marvel at the wonder of it and then he was hit full-force by the eruption of splendour. It knocked all sense from him for a while, and when he finally came round he was hurtling back up the well even faster than he had dropped down; the velocity tore at the muscles of his face, pulled his lips back from his teeth, stole even more of his breath until he thought he was going to black out again. The coruscating energy licked all around him, yet astonishingly it hadn't burned him as he had feared in the instant before it had hit him. Instead he experienced an almost transcendental sense of wellbeing; it felt cool and like honey at the same time.

  He couldn't tell if he was hallucinating from the wild sensations, but there seemed to be things moving in the fire all around him, large, dark shapes that twisted and turned sinuously. He almost felt he could hear their alien thoughts whispering in his head, accompanied by an overwhelming sense of freedom and jubilation.

  He caught the briefest glimpse of Tom's dazzled face as the energy exploded out of the well and then it rocketed up and curled around the roof, the waves protecting him. He tried to suck in some air, but all he could get were a few gasps. And then he was hurtling along the tunnel, through the cavern, which seemed smaller when lit with the burning blue light, up to where the Fabulous Beast was sleeping. Only it wasn't asleep any longer. Fleetingly he saw its blazing eyes, its mouth roaring, spitting fire, in a tremendous display of exultation, and then it unfolded its wings just as it was caught in the flood.

  And then he did black out. When he came to he had the briefest sensation of flying through cold night air and landing in a bone-jarring impact on the mist-damp grass, the wind smashed from his lungs. Finally he sucked in a lungful of air, his head swimming as he stared up at the vast, sparkling arc of the sky, waiting for his thoughts to catch up with the rush of sensation.

  When he could, he rolled over and jumped to his feet. Tom was lying in a tangled heap nearby. Church ran over, worried, but the old man stirred and shook himself, muttering some curse under his breath. Smoke was rising from their skin, as if they had been singed by the fire, but they felt no pain. The disorientation was still swamping Church's head as he looked around and recognised they were once more at the foot of Arthur's Seat near the spring.

  Tom pulled himself to his feet and instantly grew still. "Look," he said in a voice filled with awe.

  Church followed his glance. At first he didn't see it, but when the peculiar perception came on him it was unmissable. Streams of blue fire were running from Arthur's Seat into the Old Town, where they were growing stronger, until they became a burning river heading towards the castle. And all along, tributaries were breaking off, flowing into Edinburgh, out across the country into the dark distance: a magnificent tapestry of blue fire. The land was coming alive.

  And overhead, swooping and diving in the currents that followed the energy lines, was the Fabulous Beast. It let forth an enormous blast of fire which showered down among the buildings and in the red glare Church saw it was not alone. Three other, smaller beasts twisted and turned in complex but unmistakably jubilant patterns. And they were all heading towards the castle.

  Chapter Ten

  The Substance Of Things Hoped for

  The night was filled with awe and fire. The Fabulous Beasts rose up from Arthur's Seat like a bell tolling the passing of an age now out of time, subsumed with righteous wrath and primal fury. And all across the city people threw open their windows or pulled over their cars to watch the end of it all.

  The first column of fire came from the oldest of the creatures, sizzling through the air like a missile strike. It hit the centre of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which ended its long life in an explosion that was heard twenty miles away, ballooning debris as far away as the New Town; it spiralled down in flaming arcs like celebratory fireworks, crashing into the streets, demolishing cars and roofs. The fire itself was almost liquid as it cascaded through the ruins, swamping those who tried to flee.

  And high overhead the beasts swooped and soared in a display of freedom, occasionally pausing to roar another blast at the corrupted zone beneath. Their intricate flight patterns almost looked like a form of communication as they slowly worked their way up the Royal Mile. Tron Church became a needle of flame. The City Chambers, which buried the spirits of Mary King's Close, rose up in a bonfire of past hatred. St. Giles's Cathedral exploded in a shower of rock and slate and superheated stained-glass. And among them the smart shops and houses of the regal street dissolved in fire. The remnants of the haar burned off, to be replaced by a thick, black pall of smoke which glowed red and gold on the underside.

  A few very privileged souls were astonished to see what appeared to be a river of blue fire surging up the Royal Mile to the castle, as if it were seeking out its destination with sentience; and where it passed, the shadows that had clung to the Old Town in recent times seemed to leap back in horror from the burning light.

  All of it was converging on the castle with a rapidity that left onlookers breathless and disoriented.

  At the foot of Arthur's Seat, Church and Tom watched the growing conflagration with an odd mixture of dismay and relief.

  "It all depends on the others doing their job now," Church said, coughing as the wind gusted charred, sooty air into his face. "I hope Veitch got out."

  "If he did, he had God on his side. If he didn't, there's nothing we can do for him now. Nor for the girl."

  Church bit his lip, said nothing. Then he covered his mouth with his handkerchief and set off in the direction of the rendezvous point, praying silently that someone would be there to meet them.
>
  Shavi and Laura were sitting morosely on South Bridge when the attack began, still trying to make head or tail of what had happened at Rosslyn. Laura was concerned at how badly Shavi had been affected by the experience, which lay heavily on the already deep scars of his encounter with his dead friend. Neither thing would go away easily; during their short walk she had seen him continually glance into empty doorways or down shadowed alleys, as if someone were standing there. But the moment Holyroodhouse exploded, all that was forgotten. They ran back through the deserted, snowy streets to see what was happening, only to be knocked flat on their backs by a blast of heated air as another house went up in flames.

  "This is too dangerous," Shavi said. "We need to be away from here."

  "He did it!" Laura could barely hide the jubilation in her voice. "I knew the old bastard would pull through!" She watched the Fabulous Beasts for a moment, tracing their flight path back to Arthur's Seat. "Church-dude-a hero, not a zero." She brushed hair away from her eyes, grinning broadly. "At least one of us isn't a fuck-up."

  Her pleasure was sharply interrupted by a terrible sound of pain and anguish that left them both clutching their ears. "What the fuck was that?" she said when it had died away. But Shavi was already slipping and sliding through the snow closer to the Royal Mile.

  Laura caught up with him at the vantage point they had occupied before. The source of the sound was two Fabulous Beasts, circling, blasting the spot where Maponus and the Cailleach Bheur had been involved in their titanic struggle. At ground zero was an enormous smoking crater, so hot at the core the stone was turning to molten lava. To one side lay what Laura guessed was the Blue Hag, but her shape seemed to be shifting constantly, desperately trying to hold on to the appearance Laura knew. A blizzard whirled frantically around the tight core of her being where a blue light glowed brightly; the awful sound came off her intermittently, like an alarm threatening imminent meltdown.

  Of Maponus she could see nothing at first. But then the smoke cleared to reveal a terrible sight: the beautiful god was also in semi-fluid form, but whether it was because of his own madness or the ferocious heat of the blasts, he had been transformed into a twisted, grotesque shape from which three faces and several limbs protruded obscenely. His mouths opened and closed noiselessly, the silent screaming even more disturbing than the Blue Hag's shriek. Laura wondered why his writhing was so constrained until she saw he was half-fused into the wall of a house.

  "He has fallen!" Shavi said triumphantly.

  But the words had barely left his lips when a smell like frying onions filled the air and the dim golden light that always suffused Maponus' skin began to grow slowly more intense. The god's skin began to melt from his bones, then the bones themselves, and the odd things that vaguely resembled organs, all of them dissolving into one pure white light. The shapeless radiance pulled itself into a tight orb as it released itself from the wall and then began to move away across the debris.

  Another blast from one of the Fabulous Beasts blinded them with a shower of dust and choking smoke for a moment, and when it had cleared they saw the Bone Inspector loping more like a beast than a man across the rubble in pursuit of the diminishing white light.

  "Do you realise what this means?" Shavi said, aghast. "He cannot be destroyed. None of them can." His face was drained of all blood.

  Laura grabbed his arm and began to pull him away; the heat was so intense she could smell her hair singeing. "There's nothing we can do now." She had to shake him hard to stop his protests. "Mister Freak is on his tail. He can carry the can for a while."

  "We have a responsibility-"

  "That's all we do have! Later, before I hit you with a rock. You've gone all Apocalypse Now combat crazy, and if you start mumbling like Marlon I really will be forced to cause pain."

  Shavi fell silent, but his eyes remained troubled.

  "This isn't over," she continued. "Think of it as a brief retreat, right?"

  "It is not over," he agreed firmly.

  Veitch and Ruth had barely moved several yards along the ramparts before they had once again become transfixed by the Fabulous Beasts.

  "Shit, they're blowing the whole place up!" Veitch wrapped his arms around himself to stop shivering; the water from the well freezing on his clothes and hair made him resemble a walking snowman.

  Ruth watched carefully for a moment, then said, "They're coming this way."

  Witch grabbed her arm and dragged her to the Lang Stairs, and although they were lethal with ice and snow, he took them three at a time. At the bottom he paused briefly to scan the Middle Ward. The Fomorii patrol were rooted near the Cartshed, their waxy human faces turned to the approaching threat. Their statue-like appearance was emphasised by their lack of emotion, but in one second they began to change, the flesh and clothes falling away as horns and carapaces and bones began to emerge amidst a sudden cacophony of monkeyshrieks. Mid-transformation, they scattered like a disturbed ants' nest.

  Their stomachs were turning, but Ruth and Witch were already moving down to the Lower Ward before the change was complete.

  "I'll never get used to that," Ruth said queasily.

  Veitch paused near the Gatehouse and Old Guardhouse. "Maybe we can sneak-"

  The words caught in his throat as the Fomor guard emerged from the doorway and barked, "Arith Urkolim!" the moment he caught sight of Veitch. The Londoner tensed, torn between going for the crossbow or the sword, knowing either would be useless as the Fomor advanced relentlessly.

  But before he could move, the glaring, reflected light from the snow suddenly darkened and a deep shadow fell over them. It was accompanied by what sounded like giant sails unfurling in a heavy gale.

  Ruth dragged him back just as the oldest of the Fabulous Beasts swooped down in a blaze of glittering bronze and green scales. The Fomor and the Gatehouse were caught up in a furious firestorm that left Veitch and Ruth huddled in the snow, choking for breath as liquid fire and rubble rained down all around them. The crashing of mighty wings grew even more intense above them. Ruth rolled on to her back and peered through the billowing smoke. Four Fabulous Beasts were circling the castle.

  "Let's move," she choked.

  They clambered to their feet, shielding their faces from the blazing ruins of the Gatehouse. "We'll just have to put our heads down and run," Veitch gasped.

  The flames closed around them for a second, the heat searing their lungs, but then they were out in the bleak, snow-swept Esplanade, slipping and sliding down the slope towards Lawnmarket.

  Behind them they heard the terrible sound of the Fomorii raising the alarm. Ruth glanced back briefly and saw Calatin standing on the battlements of the Upper Ward, shrieking at the darkness that surged around him, pointing in fury at the circling Beasts.

  "I hope those monsters don't hurt the Beasts," Ruth said.

  Her fears were unfounded. A second later the purifying fire rained down from the heavens. The entire castle was engulfed in an inferno of living flame. Stone which had stood firm for centuries flowed like water or exploded in the instant heat. The lights popped out and windows crashed in.

  Ruth and Veitch scrambled down the Royal Mile, trying to put distance between them and what they knew was to come. Ruth guessed the Scots Guards must have had an ammunition store in the castle, for a moment later there was an explosion that felt like the city was being levelled. They were knocked flat on their faces by the pressure wave, which also drove them momentarily deaf. In a world of eerie silence, Ruth rolled over to see a column of fire reaching up to the heavens where the castle had once stood. It shimmered red and gold as the Fabulous Beasts did soundless rolls and turns around it.

  At the base there was an odd sight. The flames there were blue and they reached deep into the core of the rock on which the castle had stood.

  "It's over." The tears of relief came with the words. She scrubbed them away with the back of her hand, then turned to Veitch, smiling and crying at the same time. "It's over," she repeated, eve
n though she knew he couldn't hear her.

  The temperature rose dramatically within minutes as the summer rushed back in to replace the fleeing winter. The near-instantaneous thaw sent water gushing into the drains and pouring in torrents from the rooftops. As their hearing returned, Witch and Ruth were enveloped in the thunderous sound of the castle and the Royal Mile burning, filling the air with choking particles, obscuring the stars with thick, oily smoke.

  They hurried down George IV Bridge as fast as they could, but in the aftermath of their victory the adrenalin retreated rapidly and Ruth, in particular, was overcome with a powerful exhaustion. Eventually she was clinging on to Witch as he almost carried her the last few yards into Greyfriars Kirkyard.

  The graveyard sprawled away from the overpowering presence of the kirk, surrounded by high stone houses that made it a peaceful backwater untouched by the city. Ancient trees clustered all around, their thick cover blocking out the glare from the inferno. The choking fumes hadn't reached it either. There was only the sweet scent of the rose garden that lay before the main jumble of stones, mausoleums, obelisks and boxes that glowed eerily white, like bones, in the gloom.

  None of the others had arrived, so Veitch and Ruth collapsed on to a stone box; he slid his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  After a second or two, he said, "I know what you went through. Back at Dartmoor, when those bastards were dragging me through their torture mill…" He exhaled loudly. "You did fine."

  "It doesn't feel fine. It was like, hanging on, you know?"

  "You'll put it behind you soon."

  "Is that right?"

  A pause. "No."

  She retched and dipped her head between her knees.

  "Are you okay?"

  "No, I feel terrible."

  He laid her down on the box and put his jacket over her. Her skin was so pale it was almost the colour of the stone her cheek was touching. She huddled up into a fetal position and a second later she was asleep.