Darkest hour aom-2

by Mark Chadbourn

  He was overcome by an awful sickness when all he saw was a golden light fading into the mist, moving out across the countryside.

  Chapter Eight

  The Deep Shadows

  The first sign that all was not as it should be hit Church twenty minutes after they had entered through the well-head. No longer stale, the air in the tunnel smelled of cinnamon and mint. And it almost seemed to be singing, harmonious melodies bouncing back and forth off the walls. "Is this the start of it?" he asked.

  "`This is the best part of the trip."' Tom's voice echoed curiously behind him.

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Just remembering the sixties."

  "This is no time to be getting nostalgic." Church was tense with apprehension.

  "If you'd enjoyed the sixties to the full you'd be a little mellower in dealing with everything life has to throw at you now."

  "Sorry. I was born too late for the summer of love." There was a shush-boom effect deep in the stone walls, like a giant heart beating.

  "You missed a great time. That smell, it reminds me of California nights, hanging out at Kesey's parties when he and the Merry Pranksters set up shop after they did the Magic Bus ride. Jerry Garcia doing the music. Two kinds of punch-normal and electric. That was before the Hell's Angels moved in and ruined it."

  "What are you talking about?" Church said distractedly. "You have done too many drugs, haven't you." He reached out to touch the tunnel wall; strange vibrations rippled up his fingers.

  "You know, Kesey, Leary, all those psychonauts, they set things in motion that could have changed the world before the Establishment stamped it down. They believed the psychedelics could help them see God, did you know that? And by doing that they were just like all those people who threw up the great monolithic structures around the world where the earth energy is at its strongest. Before our feeble modern culture, psychedelics fired civilisation."

  "Are you saying all those hippies were right?" Church said distractedly.

  "We all need to be neo-hippies if we're going to cope with this new world that's being presented to us, Jack."

  The note of tenderness in Tom's voice surprised Church so much he looked around and was instantly disoriented. He appeared to be viewing Tom through a wall of oily water, the image stretched, skewed, distorted.

  "Tom?" He reached out a hand, but his friend seemed to recede with the action until he appeared to be floating backwards along a dark corridor, growing smaller yet glowing brighter.

  "It will be all right, jack." Tom's voice grew hollow, deep and loud, then faint, as if it were cycling between two speakers. Church blinked and Tom was gone.

  Unable to understand what was happening, he was overcome by a sudden wave of panic. They had been walking along quite normally, and now he was alone; it made no sense.

  Desperately, he clamped his eyes shut, focusing on Tom's advice to be mellow, and then he remembered how Tom had warned him that space and time could warp that close to such a potent source of the earth energy. He composed himself with a deep breath, accepted that he was on his own, and forged on down the tunnel.

  After following its undulating path for about fifteen minutes, lulled by the background harmonics of the air, he suddenly rounded a corner into a large cavern. He could tell it was enormous from the change in the quality of the sound of his breathing and footsteps, although the roof disappeared into the deep shadows above him. The danger of getting lost in such a place was a distinct possibility. He could follow the walls with their faint phosphorescent glow around the perimeter, but he instinctively felt the correct path was directly across the floor of the cavern, through the darkness that could hide treacherous fissures, sinkholes and pits. His fears were confirmed when he glanced down and noticed a carved rock set in the floor by his feet. It was well-made, polished and indented. It showed a dragon, its tail curling to form an arrowhead which pointed the way into the centre of the cavern. He hesitated for just a moment, then strode off into the shadows.

  It seemed like he had been walking for hours, although he guessed it was only about fifteen minutes. In the enveloping dark the going was laboriously slow, feeling with each foot before taking another step. At times the visual deprivation was so hallucinatory he felt his head spinning and he had to fight to stop himself from pitching to the ground; in that warped atmosphere he was having trouble discerning what was happening in his head and what was external.

  Without eyes, sound took on added meaning and he was alert to any aural change in his surroundings. When he first heard the distant, reverberating chingching-ching of metal on metal he froze instantly.

  Listening intently, he held his breath as the noise grew louder until it was accompanied by the trudge of heavy footsteps. A faint light began to draw closer, which he at first thought was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Gradually, though, an enormous figure presented itself to him, but it seemed unreal, like an obvious movie effect, with the light buried deep within it and seeping out through its surface. As it came into focus he felt a sudden pang of fear. From the sickening waves that rolled off it, it was undoubtedly a Fomor, but it was encased in black, shiny armour; the chainmail that glinted darkly beneath the plates was making the metallic sound that had alerted him to its presence. The oddly shaped armour with its gnarls and ridges was like a carapace, making the figure resemble a giant insect; on the head was a helmet which concealed most of the hideous face, two curved horns reaching out from the temple with a row of six smaller ones beneath. It was gripping in both hands an unusual but cruel weapon with on one side a nicked and sickly smeared axe-head and on the other a line of sharp tines of irregular length. Church heard its breath rumbling like a traction engine, the vibrations churning in the pit of his stomach.

  The figure was terrifying to see. Church had the sense it was more powerful than any of the Fomorii he had encountered before. And as it advanced, the threat around it grew until he felt queasy from the potency of the danger.

  His shock at what he was witnessing finally broke and he took a couple of staggering backwards steps before turning and running. He hadn't gone far when he stumbled over an outcropping rock and crashed down, winding himself. But as he glanced back to see how close the Fomor warrior was behind him, he saw the figure begin to break up into tiny particles, as if it were made out of flies. There was no sound, and a second later it had completely disappeared.

  Church rolled on to his back, breathing heavily, trying to make sense of what had happened. He had felt the Fomor was definitely there, yet it didn't seem to have been aware of him. Was it simply a hallucination or a by-product of the strange atmosphere that existed in that place?

  As he climbed to his feet a more important concern pushed all those questions from his mind. In his attempt to get away he had done just as he had feared-lost his sense of direction. It was impossible to tell where he had been going. There was nothing for it. Despondently, he selected a path at random and set off.

  The mesmerising darkness became claustrophobic. He was flying, he was falling. He was hearing voices singing from the void, fading, rising again in anger or despair. There was Marianne, his Marianne, saying, "So the real Dale is still in the Black Lodge?" He scrubbed at his ears and it went away.

  To his right he saw a dim golden glow pulsating with the beat of the blood in his brain. As he drew near, figures separated from the light, all shining, all beautiful. He recognised faces he had seen when the Tuatha De Danann had swept to his rescue at the Fairy Bridge on Skye. Lugh stood, tall and proud, reunited with his spear, which he held at his side. And behind him was the Dagda, a starburst from which features coalesced, alternately ferocious and paternal, always different; his own father appeared there briefly. And there were others who seemed both benign and cruel at the same time; some were so alien to his vision it made his stomach churn. They were talking, but their communication was so high-pitched and incomprehensible it might as well have been the language of angels.

  He almost stumbled am
ong them, but they were oblivious to his presence. He had the sudden urge to lash out, a childish desire born of his own powerlessness, but he knew it would be futile, and so restrained himself, if he admitted it to himself, there was some fear there too.

  But were they hallucinations? Or was the potent energy drawing him towards real moments plucked from the flow of time? As if to answer his unspoken question, Lugh pointed to an image which coalesced among them. It was Veitch, obvious despite the mask that covered his face, clutching a shotgun, his nervousness masked by anger. Church knew instantly what he was seeing: the moment when his friend had his life torn from him. Veitch waved the gun back and forth. In the background the building society was still, tense.

  One of the Tuatha De Danann Church didn't recognise leaned forward and said something in the angel-tongue. On cue, Veitch whirled and fired the gun. An elderly man was thrown back as if he'd been hit by a car, trailing droplets of blood through the air.

  Ruth's uncle, Church thought. The act that brought on her father's heart attack. Two lives ruined by the arrogance of power.

  He watched the faces of the Tuatha De Danann expecting, hoping almost, to see cruel glee or contempt there, but there was nothing. It was an act inflicted on beings so far beneath them that there was no call for any response; it was nothing more than a brushing away of a dust mote.

  Sickened, he turned and hurried away.

  He hadn't gone far when an idea struck him. If what he was viewing was random, such a turning point in all their lives would have been too much of a coincidence. In some way the events were arriving before him like lightning leaping to the rod on a church steeple, summoned by his subconscious, or some other vital part of his being.

  Maybe we're operating on the quantum level, he thought, where everything is linked. But if that was true, what did the first terrifying image mean? Maybe I can make this work for me.

  He concentrated until he dredged up images from his subconscious, some so painful they brought tears to his eyes. He remembered how Tom had used the blue fire to warp space before, drawing them along lines of power from the stormy sea off Tintagel to the top of Glastonbury Tor in the wink of an eye.

  Do it for me now, he wished, feeling like a boy, not caring.

  For long moments nothing happened. And then, suddenly, he was falling. When the descent stopped he was standing in his old flat. But it didn't have the familiar look of bachelorhood, the secret layers of dust, the scatter of magazines, piles of videos and CDs, and odours that wouldn't shift. It was before. When Marianne lived there.

  His heart leapt, but that was just the start of a complex flood of emotions that overwhelmed him. He breathed in deeply. He could smell her! That brought a fugitive tear, which he hastily rubbed away.

  Stay focused. This is where you find the truth, he thought. If you can bear it. If you can feel your heart ripped out, see things that will scar your mind for the rest of your life.

  He wished he could let it go, move on, but Marianne's death had destroyed him and not even a saint could turn the other cheek to that. Here was something he could believe in: revenge. Cold and hard.

  The flat appeared empty. One of her acid jazz CDs played innocuously in the background. And then he could hear her moving around, humming to the music, at peace with herself and the life they had.

  Don't cry, he told himself futilely.

  He remembered where he had been at that moment: in the pub two streets away, drunk on booze, drunk on life, singing old Pogues songs with Dale and thinking what it would be like to be married.

  Don't cry, he told himself futilely.

  He wiped his face, forced himself to stay calm in the centre of a room a lifetime away, when he had been whole; listened intently. Soon. Soon.

  Marianne singing now, in perfect harmony with the track. Leaving the kitchen where she had been washing up. Crossing to the bathroom. He strained to see, then averted his eyes at the last moment. Then regretted it a second later.

  The bathroom cabinet opening. She was taking out something. Bath oil? No taps yet. There had been no water in the bath.

  There it was: the bare, brief click of the door. Nausea clutched his stomach.

  "Church? Is that you?" Her voice; he couldn't bear it.

  Take me away. His eyes were flooded, blurring everything.

  He took a step forward. A dark shape flitted across the hall towards the bathroom. The damp ebb of his emotion was replaced by a cold hatred that surprised him; but it was better, definitely. It allowed him to act.

  He moved quickly. He was going to find out who the bastard was who had destroyed everything. It didn't matter that he was a puppet. He was a killer of dreams and he was going to pay the price.

  Don't scream, he prayed.

  Marianne screamed. And then he was running, and running, but the bathroom was a million miles away, and he knew if he reached it, what he wanted most in the world would destroy him. Every sight, every experience stays with you forever; that one would ruin him for all time.

  I have to see, I have to see, he pleaded with himself. And still he ran, but he knew he couldn't bring himself to do it. And then the bathroom, the flat, everything that had ever mattered to him was receding, and he was falling, upwards this time, yelling and crying, like some drunken fool, brutalised by the pain of his emotions.

  And then he was back in the dark once again.

  He wandered for what seemed like hours. If that were the case, the cavern would have been enormous, but he had the unnerving feeling he was no longer walking through that place; his meanderings had taken him much, much further afield. He didn't dare think too hard about that; the chance that he might be lost and walking for all time hovered constantly at the back of his head.

  Sometimes he thought he was about to break through into another solid place; shadowy figures moved in the distance, lighter than the surrounding dark, but he never seemed to draw near enough to reach them. Sounds continued to burst through the void, fading, then growing louder, as if they were being controlled by a mixing desk: psychedelic aural hallucinations. Briefly, he heard Ruth calling for his help, but it was lost the moment he thought he recognised her voice.

  And still he walked, until he heard something enormous moving away in the dark, circling him. A chill insinuated itself into his veins. There was a sound like the rough breathing of a wild animal and when he turned suddenly, he glimpsed a giant wolf. He knew instinctively this was the thing that had taken Ruth and attacked him in the library. But he also knew, although he did not know how, that it was not really a wolf, nor any kind of supernatural creature; it was mortal, and more, it was someone he knew.

  For the briefest instant a yellow eye glinted in the dark and he was filled with an immeasurable dread. He turned and ran in the opposite direction until he was sure he had left it far behind him.

  "Jack!"

  The voice came as a shock because he had seen no sign of any other figure after fleeing the wolf that was not a wolf. It was crystal clear, unlike the other hallucinations, and when he spun round there was Niamh, arms outstretched towards him, her normally placid face filled with concern; it made him fearful to see it.

  "It is a maze," she was saying. "If you do not pick your way through, you will be lost."

  Unlike the other visions of the Tuatha De Danann, she was able to see him. In fact, he felt she had come looking for him, to lead him out of there, back to safety.

  "Your own thoughts are trapping you," she continued.

  "How do I get out of here?" he called.

  But before she could answer, her face grew scared and she was pulled apart, as if she were nothing more than smoke caught in the wind. Even she did not have power over that place.

  After a long while he came to the conclusion that he was not making his way through a maze. It was a whirlpool. The blocked earth energy was causing eddies in the very fabric of reality, sucking him back and forth. How was he ever going to get out of it?

  He finally realised the futili
ty of walking and getting nowhere, so he simply sat on the cold, stone floor and tried to think his way out. No further scenarios presented themselves to him, nor did doors open, but during a meditation on the nature of the blue fire, a possible solution presented itself.

  Gently he closed his eyes, which seemed a bit unecessary in the uncompromising dark, but it was the only way he could do it. Then, with as much willpower as he could muster, he tried to focus on the earth energy as he had done at the well-head. It was a long shot, but Tom had told him the energy was in everything. Perhaps there was some kind of pattern he could see that would show him the way out.

  He thought it would be hard, but it took much longer in coming than it had before; the anxiety gnawing away at him seemed to be a barrier. Eventually he saw the first familiar blue streaks, just flashes against the blackness, like tracer bullets in a night-time air-raid. Slowly, though, his perception came into focus and he recognised that the earth energy was as prevalent there as it had been out on the land.

  It seemed that his analogy of a whirlpool had been correct. The tracks of light were sucked into different eddies that formed complex patterns, reminding him of Mandelbrot set illustrations he had seen: chaos everywhere, yet, paradoxically, an overriding pattern to it; a blueprint for existence. The marvel of it was mesmerising; he could certainly see how the ancients had been in awe of its power and majesty. The lifeblood of everything.

  Even so, in places the traces of light fragmented or seemed to dry up completely. There was none of the pulsating vitality he had seen when Tom had first introduced him to the blue fire at Stonehenge. Was this what had been happening all over the land, all over the globe: the gradual break-down of the fundamental essence of the world, driven to extinction by people with an increasing morbidity of spirit?

  His dreamy musings came to an abrupt end. There was one area where the light was brighter and more forceful; it seemed to be driving in to the confluence of tiny whirlpools that made up the bigger maelstrom. He hurried towards it and was pleased to see that beyond that area there was a definite flow, although it was more of a trickle than a torrent.