Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  “One of the good things about all this-we never get hassled at night any more,” Breaker said. “Everybody’s too afraid to leave their homes once the sun goes down.”

  Once they were all parked up, they assembled for the tasks to be handed out. Three went off to dig the latrines while others scouted the area for wood for the fire; no one was allowed to touch any living tree. The cooking range was erected from Breaker’s bus and several volunteers set about preparing a vat of vegetarian chilli. The mouth-watering aromas drifted over the campsite.

  After everyone had eaten their fill, Shavi sat with Breaker, Meg and Carolina next to the fire, watching the gloom gather. He had spent the day mulling over the story Breaker had told him about the abducted child and he had grown increasingly disturbed that so little had been done.

  “What could be done?” Carolina said dismally.

  Meg agreed. “We’ve seen the things away in the field. Enough of us have come across all the strange, freaky shit that hovers around the camp at night. We’re not stupid.”

  “I am not suggesting you are,” Shavi said. “But if you believe in the reality of the things you talk about, then you should not be surprised when I tell you I have certain abilities which may be of use to you.” He explained the gradual development of his shamanic skills over the weeks since the world had changed. It was a difficult task-he knew most people were still mired in the old way of thinking-but after all he had seen of the travellers’ nonconformist lifestyle, he guessed they would not be so blinkered.

  “So what do you suggest?” Carolina suggested. “A shamanic ritual?”

  “That might be effective. It is a matter of trying to peel back the layers to achieve contact with the invisible world, where all knowledge lies.”

  “And you think you’ve got what it takes?” Carolina gave a wry smile.

  “Bloody hell, Carolina! Give the bloke a chance!” Breaker berated loudly. “He’s right-we’ve done bugger-all so far. It wouldn’t hurt to take a shot at this.”

  Meg nodded. “I’m in agreement. We can do it tonight, if you like. What do you need?”

  “A quiet place among the trees, a handful of us to provide the focus of energies, some mushrooms or hash preferably, natural highs to alter consciousness. If not, we will have to make do with alcohol.”

  The others looked from one to the other and laughed. “Yeah, I think that’s doable,” Carolina said with a smirk.

  Penny broke down in a sobbing fit once Meg told her what was planned. She pushed her way past the others to clutch at Shavi’s clothes, her tearful face contorted by all the emotions she had not been able to vent. “Please God, help me find jack!” she wailed.

  Meg led her away to calm her down with a cup of tea while Breaker rounded up a few people to help with the ritual. By the end there were eight of them: Shavi, Breaker, Meg and Carolina, a woman in her sixties with long white hair tied in a ponytail, the mud-covered eighteen-year-old, who was known as Spink, a ratty-faced man with curly ginger hair and his partner, a heavyset woman who smiled a lot.

  They found a clearing in the woods where they couldn’t see the camp or hear any voices. Breaker had been wary of straying so far from the safety of the fire, but Shavi had convinced him the ritual would protect them as much as any physical defence.

  The evening was warm. They sat in a circle, breathing in the woody, verdant aroma of the trees, listening to the soothing rustle of the leaves in the cooling breeze. It wasn’t as dark as they had feared under the trees. The night was clear and the near-full moon provided beams of silver luminescence that broke through spaces in the canopy like spotlights picking out circles on the wood floor. The patterns of light and shade it created provided an attractive, stimulating backdrop to what they were about to do.

  Breaker had rustled up a plastic bag of dried mushrooms and a block of hash, which they shared out equally. They didn’t have to wait long for it to take effect. Shavi had primed them to begin a regular, low chant. He knew, instinctively, that the insistent vibrations coupled with the psychoactive drugs stimulated the particular region of his brain he needed to achieve the higher level. He didn’t know how he knew that, but it was there in the same way that he knew it was the technique employed by their ancestors in the stone circles and chambered tombs millennia ago.

  The chant moved among the trees until it became a solid, living thing, circling back and forth, then inserting probing fingers deep into his mind. He closed his eyes and raised his face so the breeze caressed his skin. The blood was singing in his veins as a tremendous sense of well-being consumed him; he felt roots going down from his body into the soil, moving underground until they joined with the trees and the shrubs. He felt a part of it all.

  The next step was the hardest. There was a deep anxiety locked inside him from the time his mind had been almost lost to the sea serpent just off Skye, and he had to fight to ensure the drugs didn’t amplify it to the point where it overwhelmed him. He regulated his breathing and focused, riding the waves with mastery. And then it was just a matter of falling back into his head, and back and back, as if he were plummeting into a deep well. Paradoxically, that journey deep within saw him suddenly out of his body. He was in the air over the clearing, looking down at himself and the others, still chanting. The view was strange, fractured; colours seemed oddly out of sorts and the dark was almost a living, breathing thing. He had only the warped perspective for an instant before his mind was jumping like lightning through the woods. There was a sensation like pinpricks all over his body, and then he was blinking, seeing the world at ground level; a wrinkle of his nose and a bound; he was a rabbit investigating the strange scene. Another lightning leap and suddenly he was up in the treetops, seeing with astonishing precision. There was the rabbit, white cotton-tail twitching. He was consumed by raptor-lust; his big owl eyes blinked twice and then he was on the wing. The lightning leap plucked him away again, to a badger snuffling in the undergrowth further afield, to a fox probing the outer reaches of the campsite for any food to steal, to a moth battering against the windscreen of a bus, trying to reach the light inside.

  And then, suddenly, he was jolted back into his own body, only this time he was seeing with different eyes, feeling and hearing and smelling with completely new senses. The invisible world was opening to him.

  “Come to us,” he said loudly. There was a ripple in the chanting, but he felt Breaker glance round the others to maintain the rhythm.

  Above him, in the centre of the clearing, the air seemed to be folding back on itself. What looked like liquid metal bubbled out and lapped around the edges of the disturbance. There was an odour like burned iron. Shavi could feel the nascent fear of those sitting near him, but to their credit they all held firm in their trust in him. A hand thrust out of the seething rift with the white colour and texture of blind fish that spent their lives in lightless caverns. Then another hand, followed by arms, elbows wedged, heaving itself out into the night. A head and shoulders protruded between them, featureless, apart from slight indentations where the eyes, nose and mouth should have been. Shavi knew from experience it was one of the human-form constructs shaped out of the aether that the residents of the Invisible World often used to communicate.

  “Who calls?” It was suspended half out of the rift, as if it were hanging from a window.

  “I call.” Shavi knew better than to give his true name. “I seek knowledge. The whereabouts of a mortal child.”

  The white head moved from side to side in a strange pastiche of thinking. “Know you there is a price to pay for information.”

  Shavi held up his hand and slit the fleshy pad of his thumb with a hunting knife he had brought from the camp. Several droplets of blood splashed on to the ground.

  “Good,” the construct said. “A tasty morsel of soul. How is Lee?”

  Shavi winced at the mention of his dead boyfriend’s name. “No games. Now, information. The mortal child was stolen from this group several weeks ago. A twig doll was left
in its place.”

  “The child is in the Far Lands.”

  “Alive and well?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “Who took him?”

  “The Golden Ones enjoy the company of mortals.” There was a faint hint of irony in its voice. “They pretend they like to play with their pets, which they do, but that is not the true reason.”

  This sounded like it could be dissembling, but he pressed on anyhow. “What is the true reason?”

  “That answer is too large and important for one such as I to give.” This gave Shavi pause; he made a mental note to consider it at a later date. “Rather you should ask me if there is hope the child will be returned,” the construct continued.

  “Is there?”

  “No hope.”

  “None?”

  “Unless the Golden Ones can be made to bow to your will. Or you can provide them with something they need in exchange.” There was none of the mockery Shavi had expected in these comments. What was the construct really saying?

  “Where is the child?”

  “In the Court of the Final Word.”

  Where Church and Tom had encountered Dian Cecht. Where the Tuatha De Danann carried out their hideous experiments on humans.

  “I thank you for your aid. I wish you well on your return to the Invisible World.”

  “One more thing.” There was a note of caution in the construct’s voice. “Turn quickly when the howling begins or the world will fall beneath your feet.”

  Before Shavi could ask about this unsolicited, oblique advice, the construct had wriggled back into the rift and it had folded around him. The warning, if that was what it was, turned slowly in his mind, but he didn’t have a second to consider it. Carolina yelled sharply; Shavi followed her wide-eyed, frightened stare.

  He was shocked to see Meg, who had been sitting cross-legged at the foot of a mighty oak, was now being swallowed up by the tree. The wood appeared to be fluid and was sucking her into it like quicksand. Her eyes were wide with horror, but she couldn’t scream for what looked to be a hand made out of the wood of the trunk had folded across her mouth. It dragged her further in; soon she would be lost completely.

  Breaker leapt to his feet and grabbed her right arm, but to no avail. Then all the others joined in, but however much they tugged, they couldn’t halt Meg’s inexorable progress.

  “Wait!” Shavi yelled. He pushed past them and placed his hand on the rough bark. It slid like oil beneath his fingers, attempting to pull him in too. The others fell back, waiting to see what he would do. “Be at peace, Man of Oak. We summoned the Invisible World for information. There is no harm intended to you.”

  For a moment the repellent sucking at Shavi’s hand continued, but then gradually it subsided. The trunk appeared to ripple and an unmistakable face grew out of the ridged bark, overhanging brow shadowing deepset eyes, a protruding nose and a gash for a mouth.

  “We know of you, Brother of Dragons.” The voice sounded like wood splintering.

  There was a gasp of surprise from the others. “I know of your kith and kin too, Man of Oak, though I have never spoken with any of you before,” Shavi said.

  “We remain silent when mortals walk beneath our leaves. They have never treated the Wood-born with respect.” A sound like the sighing of wind in branches escaped the mouth. “But we know you are a friend of the Green and the people of the trees and the people of the lakes, Brother of Dragons. Do you vouch for these others?”

  “I do.”

  There was a moment’s pause, and then Meg was slowly ejected from the tree trunk. She fell gasping on to the ground, where Breaker and Carolina ran to help her to her feet. She looked unhurt, but Shavi asked gently, “Are you all right?” She nodded, bewildered; her eyes were still rimmed with tears. Shavi felt a wave of relief that she was safe. He’d read of the dryads and naiads, the tree and water spirits, and he had sensed them at times during his previous explorations of his abilities, but it was the first time they had manifested. This time he had responded instinctively and it seemed to have worked.

  “Those who move within the Invisible World are dangerous to call, Brother of Dragons,” the tree spirit said.

  “I proceed with caution, as always, Man of Oak. How do your people fare?”

  “In our groves, our woods and deep forests we are as strong as we ever were in our prime. Strong enough to repel any who try to fell us. Already blood has been spilled in the north country and in the west, and after nightfall the people have learned to avoid the coppices where our fallen bodies lie.”

  The grim note in the creaking voice was so powerful the others blanched and took a step away. But Shavi sensed an opportunity and persevered. “Our stories say there was not always such enmity between man and tree.”

  “In the days before your people turned away from the wisdom of the land we were treated with respect and we, in turn, respected the men who moved among us.”

  “It could be that way again.”

  “It may still be too early, Brother of Dragons. The new season has not been long in the-“

  “No.” Meg stepped up to Shavi’s side. The tree creaked in protest at being interrupted. “I’m sorry for speaking out of turn,” Meg continued hurriedly, “but not all people are the same. We’ve always respected trees, nature. It’s part of our belief. We never cut green wood. We don’t pollute the land.” Shavi saw the wild intelligence bright in her eyes; she knew, as he did, that the Oak Men would be strong allies.

  A whispering like the crackling of dry leaves seemed to run through the ground to nearby trees, then out through the wood. “They’re talking,” Carolina said, a little too loudly.

  Soon after lights appeared in the deep dark, far among the trees, flickering will-o’-the-wisps that, oddly, put them all at ease. “Spirit lights,” Shavi said in awe. “The spirits of the trees moving out from the wood.”

  “It has not been seen by mortals for many lives, even by how the Wood-born measure time,” the oak said. “We accept your words. We call you to come to us as friends. Embrace the wood. Move through our home, listen to the whisper of our hearts. Show respect for us, men and women of flesh and bone, and we in turn shall forever grant you the good fortune that comes from our protection. Let this be the first act of a new age.”

  “I thank you, Men of Oak, for your good grace in forgiving the sins of the past.” Shavi rested his hand on the bark once more; it was warm and comforting to the touch.

  “Seasons come and go. A fresh start will be to the benefit of both our people.”

  Shavi turned to face the others. They were watching the lights floating gently among the trees, their faces almost beatific. Race memories, long buried echoes of wonder and awe had been released in them. In one moment they had become their ancestors.

  Gradually, one by one, they drifted off lazily among the trees. Shavi watched their transcendental expressions as they reached out to the lights, touched the wood, caressed the leaves, lost to the mystery. The Oak Man had been right: this was a moment of vital importance for the new age, the reforming of a bond that had been so powerful in times long gone.

  Shavi followed a little way behind, observing the change that had come over the travellers as they wandered in and out of the circles of moonlight; they were more at peace than he would have believed. Deep in the woods some of them came across a glassy, moonlit pool where water trickled melodically over mildewed rocks from a tiny spring, a green and silver world that smelled as clear and fresh as a wilderness mountaintop.

  Carolina sat on a rock at the edge and trailed her hand dreamily in the water. She retracted it suddenly when she saw a face floating just beneath the surface, big eyes blinking curiously. The figure was not solid; in fact it seemed to be continuously flowing and reforming. But no sense of threat came off it. Cautiously, Carolina reached out her hand and paused a few inches above the surface. The water rose up in a gentle crystal spiral to touch her fingertips briefly before rushing away. Ther
e was a sound like gently bubbling laughter. Carolina looked up and smiled, her face as innocent as the moon.

  Hours later, back at the camp site, the eight of them tried to express to the others what had happened. Amidst the gushing enthusiasm it wasn’t hard to communicate the overwhelming sense of wonder that possessed them, and by the time midnight turned they all felt they had been part of an epochal shift.

  Penny was overjoyed that her son was still alive, but the thought that he wasn’t even in the world left her dismal. “You’ve got to help me,” she said to Shavi, clutching at his sleeve like he was the Saviour; her face was pitiful, broken.

  “I will do what I can,” he replied, and it wasn’t quite a lie. He didn’t tell her what was likely to be her son’s fate in the Court of the Final Word, that even if he could find some way to bring the boy back, his mother might not recognise him.

  Still, his brief words seemed to cheer her. She left the fireside hurriedly to wander among the trees in the hope that the Wood-born’s promise of good fortune would find its way to her.

  Shavi retired to his tent early, exhausted by his experience. As the firelight began to die he had also seen a grey shape flickering like reflected light among the vehicles, and he did not feel strong enough to deal with Lee that night. His guilt at his boyfriend’s death had not been assuaged by the knowledge that it had been part of some overarching scheme by the Tuatha De Danann; he still could have done something to save Lee, he was sure of it, but fear for his own safety had paralysed him. If being taunted and berated by his dead lover on a nightly basis was the price he had to pay to purge the emotions that were eating away at him, then that was how it would have to be; even if the words he heard were driving him insane.

  There was a faint scratching on the canvas. A silhouette he would never forget. He buried his face in his bag and tried to sleep.

  And then the whispering began.

  At some point he must finally have dozed off for he woke with a start to a rustling at the entrance to the tent. His first befuddled thought was that it was Lee until Carolina pushed her way in past the flaps. Behind her was Spink, now miraculously cleaned of the mud that had grimed him from head to toe. He was handsome, dark-eyed and black-haired beneath his disguise. Shavi switched on his torch and positioned it so it illuminated the tent.