Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)
Page 17
“Does the light still burn?”
“It burns,” she replied. “Not brightly, but it’s there. You’re a good teacher.” She caught herself. “Teacher. I still haven’t worked out what our relationship is. Are you a teacher, aide, confidant-?” She wanted to add master, but a frightened part of her made her hold back.
“All of those, and more. I have been entrusted with your well-being.” The sound of his words made her think he was smiling darkly, wherever it was in the gloom he existed. Though he had been helpful and supportive, she had an abiding sense that buried within him was a contempt for her powerlessness.
“What are you?” she asked, as she always did in their conversations.
And he replied as he always did: “I am who you want me to be.” It had almost become their little joke.
But she didn’t know, and that unnerved her. She remembered all she had read throughout her life about familiars being demons or sprites doing the Devil’s bidding, and however much she had grown to realise that was propaganda put out by the early Church, she still couldn’t shake the irrational fears it had set in her. Whatever, she knew she would have to stay measured and protective in her dealings with him.
“I think I prefer you as an owl,” she noted. When the Goddess had gifted her the familiar in the dark countryside outside Bristol, she hadn’t realised what she was taking on; certainly with regard to what the Goddess had planned for her, but she had grown into it, reluctantly. And after her meeting with the woman who practised the Craft in the Lake District, she had seen its benefits. But still, she was scared. There was so much she didn’t know, so many repercussions she couldn’t begin to grasp. And she was afraid that when they did happen they would be terrible; and it would be too late to go back. “So what’s the lesson for today?” she continued hesitantly.
The voice began, telling her dark, troubling secrets: about the way the world worked, about nature, some things she didn’t feel comfortable hearing at all, for they hinted at greater, darker mysteries which underpinned every aspect of existence. But her body of knowledge about the Craft was growing. There in the dark she had learned how to use thorn apples and white waterlilies to make flying ointments, how Christmas roses could convey invisibility, how periwinkles could spark passion in the right potion and how henbane could be used to conjure spirits and intensify clairvoyance. She had discovered which plants could be used for healing and which for protection. And she knew the release of sexual energy was the core of all magick, linked directly to the blue fire that bound together the spirit of the world. Amazingly, she seemed to understand it all on first hearing and forgot none of it.
Time passed. There was a brief discussion about the raising of storms and communication with animals, enough to pique her interest and to make her realise how much there still was to learn.
“And all of this works as you say?” she asked.
“All works if applied in the correct manner by the right strength of will.”
“If I don’t get out of here all this information is going to be a complete waste, isn’t it?”
He ignored her question. “This secret knowledge exists to be put into practice and it will be meaningless to you until you do so. Do you understand the message that underpins this gift I give you?”
She thought for a moment. “No, I don’t. I don’t understand anything.”
“Listen, well. There is no reality. There is no shape to anything, except the shape you give it. In these matters, your will is all-powerful. If you learn to apply it-“
“I can do anything.” She weighed his words carefully. “If you’re to be believed …” Her voice faded. Then: “There’s always hope. That’s what it means. It’s down to me.”
In the dark, he concurred. “There is always hope.”
Church paced around the hotel room before coming to rest at the window, as he had done repeatedly over the last three hours. The sun was just beginning to tint the sky pink and pale purple away to the east.
“You are worried about her,” Shavi stated.
“She can look after herself.” The words sounded hollow the moment he uttered them. He knew Laura was resilient enough to cope in almost any situation, but the danger she always carried with her was the dark, self-destructive demon buried in her heart. And after their argument he feared she had been prepared to give full vent to that side of her nature, to punish both herself and him.
He turned back to Shavi, whose face was still bloodless an hour after he had returned to the hotel. Church knew that there was much more to his experiences in St. Mary’s Close than the bare bones of information he had told them. But Shavi was defined by his decency and he wouldn’t tell them anything that might burden them; his suffering was his own. Church couldn’t resist clapping a supportive hand on his shoulder as he passed. When everything else seemed to be falling apart, he was glad for the people he had around him. It was more than he could have hoped for; he was surprised by the warmth of the feeling.
“Look, forget all the bollocks the spooks spouted,” Veitch said with a grin. “Ruth’s alive and kicking. That’s the good thing, right? That’s the important thing.” He grew irritated when he looked around the room to see only gloomy expressions. “What’s wrong with the lot of you?”
“The spirits implied her situation was dire,” Shavi began. “We should not get our hopes-“
“Why should we believe them? All they do is talk in bleedin’ riddles anyway-
“She’s with the Fomorii, Ryan,” Church cautioned. “We’ve both been there.”
Veitch fell silent.
Shavi ran his fingers through his long hair. “What could they possibly want with her? I was under the impression we were beneath their notice since we failed to win over the Tuatha De Danann.”
Tom waved a hand dismissively. “Her situation is not paramount-‘
Church stepped in before Veitch could jump to his feet angrily. The South Londoner’s eyes were blazing with the barely controllable rage he always carried close to the surface. “What’s wrong with you? She’s a friend, you bastard.”
“This is about more than any of us. We’re all dispensable.” The coldness in Tom’s eyes made Church shiver; the emotional detachment was so great he wondered how apart from them Tom really was.
“I thought you were supposed to be the big mythic hero,” Veitch sneered. “Turning your back on a girl in trouble isn’t very heroic, is it? You weasel.”
Tom turned to Church. “Tell him. You understand.”
Of course he understood, but he could barely put it into words because it was the antithesis of everything he felt: they were all disposable, their petty little human concerns, hopes and fears meaningless against the end of everything. He felt like he was trading off his humanity little by little. If they succeeded, would it be worth it if there was nothing of him left to appreciate it?
Before Church could open his mouth, Veitch saw in his face what he was about to say. With a contemptuous shake of his head, Veitch stalked over to the other side of the room where he stood with his back to them.
Tom pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Now that’s out of the way-
“Have a little heart, for God’s sake,” Church snapped. “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you have to stamp all over people’s feelings.”
Tom eyed him coolly. “Keep a level head,” he cautioned.
“Let us examine the evidence,” Shavi said diplomatically; his smile was calm and assured. “Do we have enough to move forward?”
Church sighed wearily. “Every time we try to get some information from anything supernatural it always ends up as mysteries wrapped in smoke and mirrors, so vague you can never be sure you’ve deciphered it correctly.”
“They do it on purpose,” Tom said. “They want to see us misinterpret their words and fail or suffer. It’s a power thing. Good sport. But they have given us enough.” He nodded to Shavi. “You did well.” Coming from Tom, it was like a cheer.
“Something particularly relevant to the residents of St. Mary’s Close. A little research should turn it up.”
“Then that will lead us to the Well of Fire,” Church said. “And if we can find some way to bring that back to life, then we stand a chance of disrupting the Fomorii stronghold which we now know is somewhere beneath the castle.”
“Destroy that,” Tom said, “and we will prevent Balor returning. They would not have guarded the place with something as terrifying as the Cailleach Bheur if this was not the location for the ritual of rebirth.”
Since they had been in Edinburgh they had all felt a darkness pressing heavily at their backs. It was something more than a premonition, almost as if the threat of Balor were reaching out from whatever terrible place his essence inhabited; as if he were aware of them. It left them desperate to win the struggle ahead, and dreading what would happen if they failed.
“And then we get Ruth,” Veitch chipped in pointedly without turning from his investigation of the mini-bar. He pulled out a bottle of lager.
“But the spirits said the blue fire was not enough,” Shavi noted. He stretched out his legs and rested his head on the back of the chair. “They said we should call for the Good Son, whatever that means.”
Out of the corner of his eye Church saw a flicker cross Tom’s face; it was like a cloud obscuring the sun. “What is it?” he said to Tom.
“Nothing.” Tom looked at his feet. “A story I heard once long ago.”
“Oi. Spit it out then. You were the one who said all those old tales were important,” Veitch said irritatedly.
Tom walked over to the window where he seemed to be eyeing the rising sun suspiciously. “The Good Son was the name given by the ancient worshippers to one of the most important of the Tuatha De Danann. The Celts knew him as Maponus or Mabon-which simply means Son-or Oenghus. He was, in their stories, the son of Dagda, the Allfather, and the Great Mother. The Son of Light. When the Romans came into the Celtic lands he became associated with Apollo. When the Christians came, he was the Christ. He was linked to the sun, the giver of life. More double meanings, you see. The Good Sun.”
“What, you’re saying Jesus didn’t exist?” Church asked.
“Of course not,” Tom snapped. “I’m simply saying Maponus was an archetype. An original imprint that other cultures drew on for their own myths.”
“Well, I’m glad you answered that one, then,” Veitch said sarcastically.
“He was widely worshipped throughout the world,” Tom continued. “The Divine Youth who would lead the world back into the light; he was a great musician, the player of the lyre, a great lover, a patron of the arts, worshipped at the sacred springs and seen as a direct line to the powers of creation. Beautiful, witty and charming. But there was another side to him.” He paused. “The Irish used to call him the Lord of Love and Death.”
The sun broke through the window, casting his distorted shadow across the wall; Church had a sudden vision of something monstrous moving across the room. “What happened?” he asked quietly.
“I have no idea. After the great sundering, when all the old gods and creatures of myth left here for Otherworld, some of them, the ones with the greatest bond to our world, returned. Maponus was one of those. His links were possibly the strongest of all. There was a reason he, of all the Tuatha lle Danann, was seen as a saviour by mortals. And then, suddenly, he disappeared.”
The others waited for him to continue. “What happened?” Church prompted.
“The Tuatha lle Danann would never speak of it,” he said hesitantly. “In all my time in Otherworld it was the one question I dared not ask.” A shadow crossed his face. “That’s wrong. I did ask it once. But never again.” Church caught a glimpse of the same terrible expression Tom had worn when he had first told them about the suffering he underwent during the gods’ ganger. “The Tuatha lle Danann indulged me. I was an amusement, a curiosity, but certainly not an equal. They considered me so far beneath them they would never discuss something they considered important. And this, whatever it was, was obviously of vital importance.”
“If he disappeared, how the hell are we supposed to find him?” Veitch asked.
“When I returned to this world and was inducted into the secret knowledge of the land by the Culture …” He looked at them sharply as if he had given something away. “… the people of the Bone Inspector, I learned another strange story which perhaps shed a little light on it. One of the great old gods had been bound by the Culture in a place just south of Edinburgh, sealed in the earth for all time.”
“I don’t fucking understand.” Witch’s irritation was growing. “If this geezer was so loved, why was he banged up?” He glared at Tom as if the hippie was personally setting out to confuse him.
“I never learned why. That information was kept by the highest adepts within the Culture. I never stayed with them long enough to rise that high.”
“The Culture … the people of the Bone Inspector … they seemed to have a lot of influence. Power,” Church noted.
Tom nodded. “Supposedly eradicated by the Roman forces, they simply went underground, for centuries. But in the time when they bound the old god, they were at their strongest, worshipping in their groves, tending to the people, turning to face the sun at the solstice, standing proud, no longer stooped in hiding.”
Veitch drained his lager and tossed the bottle into the waste bin with a crash. “I don’t get it. I’ve seen these things in action. You can’t just stand up and wave a sword at them.”
“At that time, the keepers of the knowledge had unprecedented control of the lifeblood of the Earth. They used the blue fire to shackle a god.”
“Then he is imprisoned still,” Shavi noted, “waiting to be released?”
Tom merely looked out of the window towards the sun, closing his eyes when the light caught his face.
“Sounds a bit dodgy to me,” Veitch said suspiciously. “He’s not exactly going to be of a mind to help us after being underground all that time.”
“I thought you were the one prepared to risk anything for your lady-love?” Tom said curtly.
“Can we control him?” Church asked. “How do we know the dead weren’t lying to us, playing another of their games so we’d actually get into an even bigger mess? Like having an angry god giving us a good kicking for his unjust treatment.”
“We don’t know.” Tom sighed. “But it makes a queer kind of sense. If the Fomorii are preparing for the rebirth of Balor in their fortress beneath the castle, it will have been deemed impregnable. They will not risk losing their sole reason for existing. The Cailleach Bheur …” He swallowed hard; his mouth had grown unfeasibly dry. “She is a power of nature, greater even than many of the powers you have already witnessed. Of all the gods, Maponus is possibly the only one who could hold her at bay, contain her so she didn’t unleash the fimbul- winter. And if, at the same time, we could awaken the Well of Fire then the shadows might finally be turned back.”
“Alternatively, everything could go to hell in a handcart,” Church said acidly.
Tom shrugged. “Did you expect easy choices?”
“No, but I don’t expect you to be glib, either,” Church replied. He knew the decision would ultimately rest with him and he didn’t feel up to making it. So much seemed to lie on every choice. He wished he could just return to the pathetic little life he had before.
“Do you know where Maponus is imprisoned?” Shavi asked.
“Not exactly. Not to the foot. But I know the place.” He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “A place called Rosslyn Chapel.”
“I have heard of it,” Shavi mused. “A place of many mysteries. But it was founded many years after the time of which you speak.”
“And the Good Son was there long before the first stone of Rosslyn Chape
l was laid. The building was devised as a resting place.”
“I remember now.” Shavi took the bottled water Veitch handed him from the mini-bar. “The chapel is famous for its blend of Celtic, Christian and Masonic iconography in its structure. For a supposedly Christian place of worship there are pagan symbols everywhere, more representations of the Green Man than anywhere else in the land.”
“And The Green Man,” Church said, “is another way of saying Cernunnos-“
“Cernunnos was an important element in the ritual of binding. He is, to be glib-” he glanced at Church “-the flip side of Maponus. The thick, dark forests to the sunlit plains. Winter to summer. Night to day.”
“His brother,” Church ventured.
“As if that term means anything to them.”
“I am impressed that the memory of Maponus survived the centuries strong enough to prompt the erection of such a magnificent, codified building,” Shavi said.
Tom nodded thoughfully. “A good point. Of those few who held the knowledge, a separate group was established in perpetuity. The members were called, in our parlance, Watchmen. Their aim was not only to keep the knowledge of the old god’s imprisonment, but that a line of civil defence would be established to prepare for any further incursions from Otherworld. They were of their own creed to begin with, but as the role was essentially spiritual, when Christianity began to become established, representatives were chosen from the new Church. And from all the other faiths that eventually set up roots in this land. Over time, each faith’s Watchmen became almost separate entities, unaware of those groups formed by their rivals. But they all kept the same knowledge and the same mission.”
“It was one of the Watchmen who pointed us in the right direction at Glastonbury.” Shavi moistened his throat with the water. Some of the blood seemed to have returned to his features, much to Church’s relief. “And it was another group which built Rosslyn Chapel?”