Always Forever

Chapter Four

The noises echoing around the ship that night were terrifying to hear: shrieks and howls, grunts and roars; at times it was as if a pack of wild animals roamed the cramped corridors, things not even remotely human loose on board. Church and Ruth chose to stay together in the same room for security, but they did not feel safe, even with a huge chest pulled across the door.

Although the sounds were impossible to track, they knew the Tuatha De Danann were hunting the Walpurgis into the depths of Wave Sweeper. But Ruth knew how futile that exercise was, even if the gods understood the twisted confines of their ship. And so the questing continued into the small hours until it eventually died away. The silence was bitter and they knew the quarry had not been located.

They woke in a beam of sunlight breaking through the bottle-glass windows, entangled like lovers, although they had only held each other for comfort. Their position brought embarrassment and they quickly hurried to opposite ends of the bed. Eventually, though, in the warmth of the morning sun and their relief that all was calm without, their legs were soon draping over each other as they chatted lazily.

"You don't think he did it, then?" Ruth asked as she brushed with crooked fingers at the tangles in her hair.

Church threw open the windows so they could look out across the foamtopped waves. "There's something about it that's troubling me. When the Walpurgis was poking around in my head I got a sense of him. It wasn't quite a reciprocal thing-he had all my mind laid out before him-but I felt…" He fumbled for words. "I don't think he kills, however black Cormorel painted him. He certainly feeds on souls-"

"So you think he found Cormorel dying?"

"I don't know."

"Then who killed Cormorel? Who would have the power to kill him? What possible motivation could there be?"

Church held up his hand to stop her questions. "You've seen all the wild, freakish things travelling on this ship with us. God knows what's lurking down there in the darkest depths."

"The Malignos," Ruth mused.

"There was plenty of opportunity in all the chaos for something predatory to attack. Perhaps whatever did it thought we were going down and it had nothing to lose."

"I hope it's not going to deflect us from what we've got to achieve." Ruth leaned on the windowsill, filling her lungs with the salty air. "There's so much at risk, we can't afford any-"

"You don't have to tell me."

The dark tone in his voice made her look round. "What is it?"

"There's something else. When the Walpurgis was in my mind he pulled something out."

"That's right he said he had a message." Her eyes narrowed as she scanned his face for clues. "Something bad?"

"He kept replaying the scene just before Marianne's murder in our flat, the one I stumbled across in that time-warping cavern under Arthur's Seat. The same thing over and over again. Someone entering the flat, a shadow on the wall. It wasn't just images-I could smell it too, hear, feel. He knew exactly what he wanted to show me, but I think he felt it was important I found it out for myself."

"More impact that way." She chewed on a knuckle apprehensively; Church watched, wondering. "So did you get it? I know how dense you can be," she asked.

He nodded. "Part of it anyway." He weighed his thoughts, not sure how much he should tell her, then hating himself for even thinking it. "One of us killed Marianne."

"One of us?"

"Laura, Shavi, Veitch-"

"Or me?"

"Everything went pear shaped before I had a chance to piece it all together. But I saw a shadow that I recognised. I smelled something-"

"What? Like perfume?" she said sharply.

"No. It was unusual. But familiar. Subtle. I don't know what it meant. Instinctively I was certain it was one of us. If I'd only had a few more minutes-"

"You're sure?"

He thought for a moment. "I'm sure."

She sucked on her lip. "So who do you think it is?"

"I don't know."

"Who do you think?"

"I don't know. Honestly."

"Do you think it was me?"

He looked her full in the eye. Her gaze was unwavering, confident, perhaps a little hurt. "I'm about as sure as I can be that it wasn't you."

That pleased her immensely. Her mouth crumpled into a smile before growing serious a moment later. "That ties in with what the Celtic dead told us about a traitor in the group. Whoever it was, they were there from the start."

"We mustn't start jumping to conclusions."

"No, but it makes sense."

And he had to admit that it did, but it was too upsetting to consider. The five of them had been friends through the hardest of times. They had saved each other's lives. He trusted them all implicitly, knew them all inside out, or thought he did. None of them had the capacity to be a traitor on the scale implied, he was sure of it. But if he could be fooled through such intimate contact, what did that mean? That the traitor was truly evil, and truly dangerous.

He could tell Ruth was thinking something similar; she rubbed her arms as if she were cold despite the warmth of the sun. "There's no point in guessing," she said eventually. "If we could piece it together from what we've seen we would have done it already."

"I know, but…"

"What is it?"

"It casts a shadow over everything. I know that sounds stupid with what's going down, but the fact is, the five of us… six, with Tom… we were the calm centre, something I could rely on to make everything else bearable."

"It's just the two of us now. We're the calm centre."

Any further discussion was curtailed by a sharp knock at the door. It was Baccharus carrying a tray filled with cold meats, fruit and bread. "I thought you might like to break your fast," he said quietly.

They ushered him in, then refused to let him leave while they hungrily are everything on the tray. They questioned him about what was happening elsewhere on Wave Sweeper.

"The Master has called a meeting of all who travel upon Wave Sweeper, on deck shortly. There is a feeling for…" He chose his word carefully. "… retribution."

"Have you found the Walpurgis?" Church asked.

Baccharus shook his head. "There are many scouring the boat, even as we speak, but it is…" He made an expansive gesture.

"How serious is this?" Ruth said.

"How serious? To the Golden Ones it is a crime against existence. We dance amongst the worlds; stars pass beneath our feet. We are a part of everything, of the endless cycle. We are not meant to be eradicated-"

"But it is possible," Church said, remembering Calatin. "You know that."

"Anything is possible." Baccharus's voice had grown even quieter. "But there are some things that should not happen. One could imagine the whole of everything falling into the void before they came to pass. The eradication of a Golden One is one of those things. Cormorel may have appeared young to you. But he was enjoying his wild ways when your world was a steaming rock in the infinite dark. What you saw last night was something beyond your comprehension. A star exploding would not have matched one atom of its import."

"I'm sorry." Ruth rested a hand on his forearm. "I know Cormorel was your companion. We know what it is like to lose a dear friend." His expression brought her up sharp; it said she could never understand the slightest of what he-all the Tuatha De Danann-were experiencing.

"There are two issues here," Baccharus continued. "The Master is concerned that the Walpurgis had not only the power, but also the knowledge of how to use it to end Cormorel's days. And that he had the inclination."

"Do you believe it was the Walpurgis?" Church pressed.

Baccharus looked at him thoughtfully. "You saw as well as I-"

"I saw him drain Cormorel's soul. I didn't see him commit murder."

Baccharus shrugged. "The Master believes it to be the Walpurgis-"

"Isn't justice important?"

"Of course." Baccharus's voice grew cold for the first time since they had known him.

"Well, isn't it?" Church pressed.

"Justice is above us all."

An uncomfortable silence descended on the room until Ruth couldn't bear it. "That thing which attacked last night-"

"The G'a'naran." Baccharus was staring dismally across the waves.

"The G'a'naran. What was it?" She looked to Church. "It reminded me of old stories, mariners' tales-"

"More race memories, things that slip between the worlds."

"A sea monster?"

"The G'a'naran is unformed, from the age when all flowed freely, finding its shape," Baccharus said. "Its home is not beneath the waves, though sometimes it takes refuge there. It navigates amongst the stars-"

"Like you?"

Baccharus looked at Ruth. "No, not like us."

Church was troubled by Baccharus's description. "I don't understand why it attacked the ship if it's not some kind of mindless animal, which I presume it's not. Is it a predator?" He was surprised to see Baccharus was concerned too. "What is it?"

The god made to leave without answering, but Church dragged the reply from him. "The G'a'naran would not have attacked Wave Sweeper unless it was provoked. Or summoned."

"Summoned?" Church's head was thundering; connections were lining up, but not quite linking. "What's going on here?"

Before the matter could be pursued further, a long, low mournful sound reverberated throughout the ship. It drew an overwhelmingly dismal feeling from deep within them; Ruth found tears springing to her eyes involuntarily.

"The Master is summoning." Baccharus looked oddly distracted, almost dazed. When he realised they were still seated, he said, "You must come."

The sun was unbearably bright as they stepped out on to the deck, blinking. "Tell me," Church hissed to Baccharus in response to the silence that lay heavy over everything, "when you were in trouble on deck last night, why didn't anyone save you?"

On the surface Baccharus's face appeared emotionless, but Church could tell there were deep but unreadable emotions running beneath. "There is no recognition that we might not exist. Therefore there is no need to aid one in dire straits."

"I thought you lot always stuck together."

"You do not understand our ways." It was a cold statement; Church knew there was no point pursuing the matter. By that time they had arrived in the midst of a crowd filling every foot of the ship's boards, some of the freakish travellers even clambering up into the rigging. Others were arriving behind them. Amidst the reek of alien scents, the pressing of skin that felt like carbonised rubber or gelatine, Church fought to focus his attention on the tableau unfolding on the raised area preserved for the captain of the vessel.

His face like an ocean tempest, Manannan overlooked the crowd, hands behind his back, flanked by other members of the Tuatha De Danann. Niamh was close by his right arm, her beautiful face troubled too. She stared across the waves, lost to whatever dark scenarios were playing in her mind.

A low muttering had risen in the crowd like wind over the water, but when Manannan raised his left arm, everyone felt silent. His gaze slowly moved across the masses; even at that distance Church was sure his eyes were burning. His face held an odd quality too, as though it were about to become fluid, transform.

"A crime has been committed against the very fabric of existence." He appeared to be whispering, but his voice boomed over the throng, which grew visibly cowed. "Something more valuable than the stars above you, more important than the entire weight of all your races, from the beginning to the end, has been torn away. This will not go unpunished."

Church felt a pang of fear. Ruth's skin was unnaturally pale.

"The one who committed this atrocity is known to us, and though not yet within our grasp, know this: there is no escape from our unflinching eye. No hope. We will peel back the lies, strip away the moment and the mile, never rest, until we have it." He paused, letting his words fall like stones. "And know this also: our gaze will be turned on you, all of you, individually, even in your most private moments. And if we find any who have aided or abetted the committal of this monstrous crime, they will be punished." Another pause. "With the full weight of our wrath."

He surveyed the crowd one final time, with many flinching from his eyes, and then slowly descended to his quarters, the other members of the Tuatha De Danann trailing behind.

Even when they had all departed and the door had closed, no one on deck moved, no one spoke, there was not even a rustle of clothing. Church smelled fear in the air and more than that, an awful dread that events were rapidly deteriorating. There was darkness on the horizon and none of them knew which way the wind was blowing.

"He's in here?"

Baccharus motioned towards the heavy wooden door with the black sigil. It was two decks down, at the heart of the ship so no wall was next to the cool, green water. Church moved his palm gently a quarter-inch above the surface of the door, testing the sensitivity that had grown in him since Tom had introduced him to the Blue Fire. His skin prickled. Inside the room he felt an unpleasant coldness that was the antithesis of that spirit energy. He didn't know why he had asked Baccharus to take him there while Ruth rested-or hid-in her cabin, but the urge had been insistent. He pushed his palm forward and the door swung open at his touch.

The chamber was in complete darkness. It smelled of some zoo cage littered with dirty straw, reminding him uncomfortably of his imprisonment in the mine deep beneath Dartmoor. He couldn't help but think a cruelty was being inflicted, despite everything his rational mind told him of deserving punishment.

Baccharus stepped past him holding one of the torches from the corridor and lit an extinct one fixed to the wall close to the door. Unlike the torches without, it cast only a dull, ruddy glare, barely causing the shadows to retreat. Baccharus nodded to him curtly, then stepped out and closed the door behind him.

"So you've found it in your heart to visit another soldier of the road, now sadly down on his luck." The voice was infused with scorn.

At the far end of the room was an iron cage, barely large enough for a man to stretch out in. Straw was indeed scattered on the floor within, along with what resembled an animal's feeding trough. Callow squatted at the back of it, his peeled white eyes staring like sickly lamps. There was something about that unflinching gaze that made Church's stomach squirm: human yet not human. The parchment skin was a muddy red in the flickering glow of the torch, but the black veins still stood out starkly, a roadmap of hell.

"Don't get smart with me. You've brought everything on yourself."

"Well, that's a fine attitude for such a noble man to take. Filled with Christian values. Do I hear the sweet tinkling notes of forgiveness? The vibrato of salvation? The teasing choir of redemption? Or perhaps we truly are brothers of the byway. When the ditch is your billet, you see life with a different perspective, is that not true? Not so noble then, is it? Means to an end is the phrase on every good man's lips."

"Shut up, Callow. I haven't got the energy." Church eyed the heavy padlocks on the cage door. The Tuatha De Danann were taking no chances with him. Perhaps he should be more cautious.

"And how is the lovely Miz Gallagher?" Callow began oleaginously.

Church's glare stopped him dead; it left Callow in no doubt that here was a topic where he could never trespass. Callow scrabbled around in the straw for a distraction like he was looking for a stray piece of corn from his meal; a chicken waiting to be harvested. But then he looked up with a cold confidence and said, "Things have turned a little sour, have they not?" His thin lips peeled back from his blackened teeth in a sly smirk.

He knows why I've come, Church thought.

Callow's eyes were a vortex in the gloom. "You're here to beg for my help. Oh, Glory be! My time has truly come!"

"Your time has long gone, Callow. But you might still be able to rescue a thin chance of saving yourself if you start acting like you don't want to see the whole of humanity eradicated."

"Look after number one, my boy. You know that well."

The jibe hurt Church even though he had managed to put his own selfish interests to one side. "This is a new age, didn't you know? These days we look after each other." Callow looked away. "I may be wasting my time here in more ways than one," Church continued, "but I have to ignore my personal feelings if there's a chance everyone might benefit. And make no mistake, Callow, I loathe you. For what you did to Laura, and Ruth. For turning your back on the human race simply to achieve your own ends. You truly are a grotesque person. But it's still wrong the way the Tuatha De Danann are treating you like some animal."

"We are all animals to them."

"I know. They use us for their own ends, but this time we're using them." Church felt uncomfortable trying to play Callow. A streak of madness that ran through him made him impossible to predict; Church still didn't really know what the Fomorii had done to him inside. "I've got a feeling you know something that might help us. Where the Fomorii main nest is, where Balor is hidden, building up his strength. Some weakness-"

"Oh, you really are a prime example of hope over reality," Callow snapped bitterly. "I should give up my hard-won knowledge? For what? A chance to be seen as good?" He waggled his fingers to show the gap where he had sliced the one off himself. "You forget, my little pet, the only reason I would want to take your hand is to harvest your digits."

"So you don't know anything, then." Church made to go.

"I know a great many things that would shock and surprise you," Callow replied sharply, stung by the dismissal. "I know what makes your eyes light up. And where the Luck of the Land lies. And I know what happened on this Ship of Fools last night."

"How?"

"I can hear things through the walls. Through many walls."

"I know what happened last night. That's not important to me-'

"You would think, wouldn't you?" Callow smirked again; Church couldn't tell if it was more petty tormenting or if he truly did know something of import. "Now be off with you, and leave me to my peace and quiet," Callow snapped, "and don't return unless you have the key to release me from this foul den."

When he reached the door, Callow called out to him again, "Are you missing your friends? Do you feel lost without them? Too weak and inexperienced? What is it like to know they are all dead, dead, dead…

Church stepped out and slammed the door hard so he wouldn't have to hear any more.

The first thought was like a candle in a room that had remained dark for an age. It flickered, dangerously close to extinction, but then caught. Slowly, the heat and the light returned.

For Laura, memories pieced together gradually and chaotically, sparing her the full horror of revelation in one devastating blow. Making love to Church. The joy she felt at finally finding someone to whom she could open up the dark chambers of her soul. Making love to Shavi, a friend who defied any insipid meaning she had given to the word in the past. Her hated mother, her pathetic father. Her friends. Her work: computer screens and mobile phones. One image returning in force: trees. The things she had fought for so many times with her environmental activism.

They gathered pace, memories clinging together, forming patterns in the chaos. The quest. The Quincunx, the five who are one. Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Talismans and Blue Fire. Standing stones and old religion. Tuatha De Danann and Fomorii. And Balor.

And Balor.

Electricity jolted her body into convulsions. She recalled with crystal clarity the night on Mam Tor when she had taken the potion from Cernunnos and made the sacrifice that would end her life; for Ruth, for everyone. When she took Balor into her own body.

Another shock, dragging her from the recesses of her head. How could she still be alive, thinking? When Balor emerged from her it would have rended her body apart.

Gradually details of her surroundings broke through her confusion. She was lying on her back in a dark place; as her eyes adjusted she realised there was a thin light source filtering in from somewhere. The air was thick with the stench of decomposition. She choked, gagged, tried to breathe in small gasps that went straight to the back of her throat. She made the mistake of turning her head and looked into a pair of glassy eyes only inches from her. It was a woman, not much older than her. Beyond she could just make out irregular shapes heaped all around. They resembled bags of discarded clothing.

Closing her eyes, she took refuge once more in her head, but even there no safety lay. Her body was racked with pain. Slowly she let her hands move down her torso towards her belly, dreading the end of their journey. They were halted by sharpness and void almost before they had started.

Initially she couldn't work out what she was feeling, and then when she did, she refused to believe it. But there was no doubt. Her ribs were protruding on both sides like jagged teeth around the hollow from which Balor had erupted.

It couldn't be. She was dead. Dead and dreaming. Her arms collapsed to her side and her thoughts fragmented once more.

The next time she was aware, she let her hands investigate once more, praying it had been a hallucination. And this time there were no broken ribs and gaping wound, although her clothes around that area were shredded.

Her relief left her sobbing silently for several minutes.

Finally she found the strength to lever herself up on her elbows. From the air currents she could tell she was in some cavernous room, the ceiling and walls lost to the shadows. All around were corpses, piled in rolling dunes. Faces and hands and feet were pressing into her back and legs. So many dead. Hundreds. Thousands. Amidst the horror she was thankful for the small mercy that she was on the top and not drowning beneath the sea of bodies. And she was alive. Amazingly, astonishingly alive.

Then she cried some more.

In the Court of the Yearning Heart, laughter often sounds like the cries of the insane. The walls are never quite thick enough to prevent the noises coming through from adjoining rooms; whimpers of pleasure and pain, others a combination of both. Scents continually tease, each one subtle and complex so the passerby dwells on them for minutes, perhaps hours. Every surface has a pleasing texture; it is impossible to touch anything once without wanting immediately to touch it again. Addiction can spring from the merest taste of the food to the tongue.

In comparison, the chamber designated for Tom was almost unpleasantly ascetic. He had stripped everything from it to minimise the sensory overload so that his life was, if not acceptable, then bearable. At least he no longer had to worry about accepting the food or drink of Otherworld; there was little hope he would be leaving the Court any time in the near future. Prisoner by his own hand, or theirs, it made no matter.

He sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, smoking a joint to dull his searing emotions: wishing he could smoke enough to shut down his thoughts completely. Despite the clothes that had been offered to him by the Tuatha De Danann, he still resembled an ageing hippie: his greying hair was fastened into a ponytail with an elastic band, the wire-rimmed spectacles had been fashionable in the late sixties, his too-washed T-shirt and old army jacket: they all grounded him in the experiences of the world he had left behind. And for the first time he felt the hundreds of years piled high on his shoulders. He had thought himself immune to the rigours of passing time, but now it felt as raw as it had in the first century or so of his transformation.

They had taken Veitch four hours ago. How long before they spat him out of the inner recesses of the Court where the miracles and atrocities occurred, torn apart and rebuilt into something else? Decades, as it had been in Tom's own case? Or longer? He winced, unable to stop the razored parade of memories of his own early experiences at their hands. After so long, they were still just beneath the surface, torturing every second of his life. He had already shed tears for the suffering Veitch would face in the times ahead, and he did so again, briefly and silently. Would Veitch grow to love his tormentors even as he hated them, just as Tom had? He thought he probably would.

Then Tom, grown emotional through the drugs, battled a wave of damp emotion, this time for himself. For the first time he had found kindred spirits, friends even, although he had never told them that, and all he had done was witness their appalling suffering. Now he might never see any of them again, not even Veitch, who would no longer be Veitch when he returned, in the same way that he was no longer Thomas Learmont. Against all that, even the destruction about to be instigated by the Fomorii was meaningless.

He took a deep draught of the joint, trying to decide if that thought was selfishness or some deep psychological insight; not really caring.

The door was flung open some hours later and Veitch tumbled into the room. Dazed and winded, he came to rest in a heap against the far wall. It took Tom a second or two to realise what he was seeing; even then, he barely dared believe it.

"So soon?" he said, puzzled.

"Don't just sit there, you old hippie," Veitch snapped.

Tom scrambled over to help him to his feet. "You're fine?"

Veitch examined his hands, then stretched the kinks out of his arm muscles, unable to believe it himself. His long hair was lank with the sweat of fear, his tough, good-looking features drawn with apprehension.

"What happened?"

Veitch was surprised at the bald relief in the hippie's voice after weeks of his curt, dismissive manner. "I don't know what happened. When they took me from here I was brought before Her Majesty." There was a sneer in Veitch's voice, but Tom knew it was there only to mask the fear of the Queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart, architect of all desire and suffering. "She gave me some spiel about how I was setting off a new phase of existence. Didn't really know what she was talking about, to be honest." He examined his hands closely. "Wasn't really listening."

Tom remembered the same response: the fear of what lay ahead driving all rational thought down to its lowest level; not thinking, just reacting. He reached out a supportive hand; surprisingly, Veitch allowed it to rest briefly on his forearm; a small thing, but a sign of how deeply he had been affected.

"They took me through these red curtains into a room that was hung with tapestries. There was a wooden bench in the middle. They tied me to it. Up on the ceiling, there was something, a light of some kind. Only it wasn't a real light. It was like it had a life of its own, you know?" His description faltered under the limitations of his vocabulary and his unstructured thought processes, but Tom nodded in recognition. Veitch appeared relieved he wouldn't have to go into it further.

"And then whatever the light was, it made me black out. Next thing I knew I was looking up at the Queen and she was…" He searched for the right word. "Furious."

A tremor crossed Tom's face.

"Her face sort of… changed. Kept changing. Like… like…"

"Like it wasn't fixed."

"Exactly. Like she was breaking up. Turning into something else. Lots of things. I dunno why. I mean, it wasn't like I'd done anything. I'd been out like a light. Next thing I know those jackboot bastards who always follow her around dragged me back here."

Tom dropped back on to the floor, slipping easily into his cross-legged stance, his face locked in an expression of deep rumination; it didn't make sense, whichever way it was examined. The Queen would not have given up the opportunity to spend decades tantalising and tormenting a mortal for anything. He eyed Veitch suspiciously. "Are you sure it wasn't some trick? Offering you the chance of hope, only to snatch it away. The pain is more acute that way." The note of bitter experience rang in his voice.

"No, you should have seen her, mate. It was real. Scared the shit out of me." Veitch grinned broadly, then cracked his knuckles. "Fuck it. Who cares? Maybe there's a chance we'll get out of here."

"The Queen will never let you go."

"Don't be so bleedin' negative. You didn't see them. They were all like…" He made a dismissive hand gesture. "Like I was something on the bottom of their shoe."

Before Tom could consider the matter further, the door rattled open. Melliflor and the Queen's Honour Guard stood without, dressed in the freakish golden armour that resembled a mix of sea shells and spiderwebs, offset by silk the colour of blood; armour worn only for the most important occasions. Recognising the signs, Tom struggled to his feet. Veitch stepped in front of him protectively, the tendons on his arms growing taut.

Devoid of its usual mockery, Melliflor's face was contemptuous, hacked from cold granite. "Our Lady of Light demands your presence."

Demands, Tom noted. Not requests. All pretence of politeness had been dropped; they were no longer favoured guests, nor even figures of fun. "How could we deny her?" Tom saw the dangerous glint in Melliflor's eye and knew he could afford not even the slightest mockery. He bowed his head and, with Veitch at his heel, followed the guard out of the room.

The Queen of Heart's Desire sat in the centre of a room where twenty braziers roared like blast furnaces. The air was unbearably thick with heat and smoke. Despite the light from the flames, gloom still clung to the periphery, beyond the thick tapestries in scarlet and gold that swathed the stone walls. It was oppressively unpleasant, yet still seared with sensation.

The first time Veitch had seen the Queen, she had been the embodiment of sexual craving, sucking at every part of him that needed; naked, splayed, prostrate, for him alone, yet still somehow above him, still in control. Even though he knew she was manipulating every pump of his blood, he couldn't help wanting her; even though the rational part of him had only contempt for her, he would have given himself to her immediately, done anything asked of him.

Now, though, she was enveloped in a brocaded gown and cloak that covered her from neck to toes; a headdress left only the smallest heart of face visible, and that was glacial. She wouldn't even meet his eyes. Despite himself, he felt brokenhearted, unwanted. He looked at Tom and saw the Rhymer felt the same.

Tom bowed his head. "Have we offended you in some way, my Queen?"

She looked over their heads as if the voice had come from the shadowy corners. "Fragile Creatures are always offensive."

"What's wrong?" Veitch was shocked when the words emerged from his mouth, so rimmed with pathetic submission were they; he couldn't help himself, that was the worst thing.

"You are free to leave the Court of the Yearning Heart." She addressed Tom directly. "All compacts and contracts are rescinded. This is a gift given freely and without obligation."

Tom kept his head bowed. "We thank you for your hospitality, my Queen. And may I say-"

She raised her hand. Instantly Melliflor was at Tom's side, directing him towards the exit. The rapidity of their dismissal took them both by surprise, but Tom saw Veitch bristle before they had reached the door.

"Is that it?" Veitch hissed. Then: "What's up with her?" When Tom didn't answer, Veitch thought for a long moment and then said, "She just got bored, didn't she, like some fucking spoilt aristocrat." He tried not to sound too hurt. "She's found something else to interest her more. We're just… nothing."

"Hush!" Tom cautioned with blazing eyes. "If you want to get out of here alive-"

"True Thomas."

A look of horror crossed his face at her voice. He turned sharply. "My Queen?"

"The Quincunx are no more, True Thomas."

Veitch saw Tom blanch. "What's she on about?" he whispered.

"The shaman has moved on from the Fixed Lands." A cruel smile lay comfortably on her face.

Tom bowed his head, this time for himself. "And the other Brother and Sisters of Dragons, my Queen?"

She inclined her head thoughtfully. "One of them sleeps in a charnel pit. I hear the other two travel to the Western Isles, True Thomas. And you know what that means."

Veitch looked to Tom for explanation, although in his heart he understood the sense of the Queen's words. He stifled the rising panic, pretending he didn't believe them. Tom's face wouldn't allow him to wallow in the lie, and then Melliflor was once again steering them towards the door.

They emerged on to the summit of the Hill of Yews on an ethereal, late summer morning. Grey mist drifted amongst the gravestones and the clustering trees; the whole world was half-formed; fluid. It was cool and still, disturbed only by the occasional bird song and a wild fluttering in the treetops. They could hear no car nor plane nor boat on the nearby river. Their first thought was that they were the only ones left alive.

"Can you feel it?" Tom asked.

And Veitch did, though he was by far and away the least sensitive of them all: there was a sourness in the air.

"Balor is here," Tom said redundantly.

Like a child, Veitch still refused to accept. "Then why hasn't it all been wiped away?" His gesture took in the towering trees and the stones and the War monument and the glimpses of Inverness beyond.

"It can afford to take its time. Not that time has any meaning for it." Tom drew in a deep breath of air, surprised he was still alive, stunned by how much he was glad to be back; he had thought he couldn't feel anything so acutely any more. "It's waiting for Samhain, when its power is at a peak. But things are moving." He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the sensations. "Things are moving over the lip of reality, creeping here, eating away at the edges."

Veitch kicked at the wet grass. "That's why she threw us out. Suddenly she's got something more important to think about. She's like a spoilt brat who's been told she can't play with her toys because she'd got to do her homework."

"You could be right. It would be unwise for the Tuatha De Danann to ignore the threat of the Fomorii. The Queen may well have been entreated to face up to her obligations."

"Fuck it." Veitch furiously blinked away tears that had appeared from nowhere. "Shavi's dead."

Tom nodded slowly. "It appears so."

Veitch's shoulders slumped until a new revelation dawned on him. "But not Ruth!"

"Somehow she survived."

"But if Shavi died, and we failed, who saved her?" His eyes narrowed. "That bitch wasn't lying, was she?"

"No. She told us about Shavi to hurt us. If she could have hurt you more by telling you Ruth was dead, she would have done."

Veitch punched the air. "Yes! Jesus, yes!" Tom watched his emotions seesaw as he struggled to cope with Shavi's loss and Ruth's survival. "But Shavi…"

"You were close to him. I'm sorry." His sorrow was much deeper than his words suggested; without the five of them there was no hope. But that didn't make sense: he had seen the end, or part of it at least. That was the trouble with second sight: it never gave a true picture.

"I know he was a queen and all, but, you know, he was all right." Veitch, never one to express sensitive emotions, looked like he was about to tear himself apart trying to find words to maintain his pride, yet show his true feelings.

Tom spared him. "Come on. This isn't a place we want to tarry."

Inverness was a ghost town. It didn't take them long to discover that technology had finally given up its futile battle to maintain a foothold in the world. The people they met looked uniformly dazed, as if they were walking through a dream, waiting to wake. But as the day passed, those who were determined to maintain some degree of normality came out of the woodwork. They found a cafe near the river where the owner had sourced produce from local farmers, but her face had the perpetually troubled expression of someone who worried how much longer it could last. Cash was still accepted; things hadn't yet broken down that much. Veitch and Tom had only a few pounds left between them in crumpled notes and coins, and they decided to blow it all on a big breakfast. Nothing tasted as vibrant or heady as the food in Otherworld, but, surprisingly, it was more fulfilling. Three weeks had passed since Lughnasadh and Balor's return, nearly a month of so-far gentle winding down.

The breakfast passed in funereal silence. They should have been jubilant at their escape from Otherworld, but Shavi's death weighed so heavily on Veitch, nothing else felt important.

Over strong tea at the end of the heavy, fried meal, Veitch asked, "So what do we do now?"

Tom blew on his tea, but even before he spoke, Veitch could tell he had no answers. That disturbed him; the hippie had always acted like he knew everything. "Jack and Ruth are on their way to the Western Isles. There's nothing we can do until they return. If they return." He spent a moment floundering around for words, then looked Veitch squarely in the eye. "Everything has changed, Ryan. We cannot move ahead as we have in the past."

"So we didn't stop the biggest Bastard of all coming back. We've had setbacks before-"

"No. It's worse than you understand. I know you find it hard to see beneath the surface-that's not where your strengths lie. But I think you realise everything we see around isn't the picture at all. It's a shop window decoration, a lie designed with a particular aim in mind. Behind it is a complex pattern of powers and relationships. Things work differently there. A single muttered word can have unguessed repercussions. Symbols weave through that pattern, across time and space, wielding powers undreamed of. There are rules none of us know, Ryan, a language we can't begin to understand."

"What are you saying?"

"Five is one of those things that sends powerful ripples through all of existence, Ryan. Forget everything you know for a moment, if you can. Five is not a number. Let's give it another definition to point you in the right direction. Say, Five is a word we give to a nuclear generator, creating great energy that could transform the world, but also great destructive force." Tom stared into Veitch's eyes, waiting for that familiar glazing over, but Veitch's gaze remained true, if troubled. "There have to be five of you, Ryan. If not, the power isn't there. However much effort you expend, however clever you are, it will amount to nothing, because in the new language we're talking about, Three has a different meaning. It has to be Five. And it has to be the Five selected by whatever the unifying force is, whether you call it God or Goddess or the Voice of the Universe."

Veitch looked dazed. "You're saying it really is all over? I thought the message you were trying to drum into us all was that there's always hope? Because that's what I feel here." He thumped his heart. "So I know it's right. You taught us that, and I learned it well. So don't come here with your bleedin' mealymouthed talk of failure 'cause I'm not having any of it. Are you telling me we can't do anything?" He jabbed a finger at Tom's face. "Are you?"

Tom finished his tea thoughtfully. "I know things will come to a head. I know it will be a dark and disturbing time, but I have no idea if the resolution will be the one we all hope for. Perhaps we can do something." At that moment he felt the weight of his great age.

One of the other early diners leaned over them on his way out. He was an old man in a dark, faded overcoat and thinning snowy hair above a similarly bleached face. "Put a smile on your face," he said in his lyrical Highlands accent. "You'll be dead a long time. However bad it is now, think on that."

"See," Veitch said. "Even he can bleedin' well see it."

Rattling his cup in its saucer, Tom stood up and attempted to ease the strain from his limbs. The terrors of the Court of the Yearning Heart had shaken him to the core of his being; he needed time to find his true centre once more, his confidence. He truly didn't know which way to turn, but Ryan was relying on him, as they all had relied on him. He looked down at the childlike hope on Witch's face and felt an abiding sadness.

"Come on, then," he said. "We'd better go and talk to the universe."

The clear night sky was awash with a thousand stars normally obscured by the mundane glow of sodium lights, while the moon shone its brilliant rays through the treetops. The air was warm from the heat of the day and filled with the aroma of pine. The only sounds were their footsteps on the deserted road and the lapping of the waves in the loch.

Veitch couldn't stop looking up at the sky, feeling a small part of something immense and wonderful. Even a country boy would have thought it was special, but to Veitch, raised in a city where the night sky was a mystery, it was unbelievable. Even the thick shadows that swamped the hillsides running to the loch took a friendly cast.

"It's a good night," Tom said, as if sensing his companion's thoughts.

"I've seen a lot of country over the last few weeks, but nothing like this."

"There's still magic out there. Even with all that's happening."

"Maybe it's become more powerful because of what's happening."

Tom was surprised at Witch's insight; it was rarely given voice, but when it did it came in inspirational flashes. "You know what, I think you're right."

"Yeah, magic. Something for us to plug into." They walked in silence for a few yards and then Veitch added, "Shavi would have loved this."

Tom felt humbled by the aching loss he heard in Witch's voice, but there was warmth there, too, of a kind Veitch had never before exhibited. During their journey north to the Court of the Yearning Heart Tom had learned to see his companion in a new light, more than just a caricature of muscles and South London honour; he was a good man, for all his faults, riven by neuroses, but with a decent heart. "He was developing into a fine shaman. I was surprised how quickly he took to his abilities, always pushing back the boundaries, striving to better himself."

"Yeah, that's it, innit? We all try to do the best we can, but it came natural to him. It's not fair he caught it first."

"How do you feel about it?"

"Like I've lost my best mate." Subconsciously he pushed himself a few paces ahead of Tom, head bowed, his hanging hair obscuring his face. "I miss his advice, y'know. He always knew the right thing to say. I've never known anybody… sensible before."

Tom was prepared to continue the conversation, but Veitch pushed on a little further, keen to be alone with his thoughts.

It had taken them most of the day to walk from Inverness, and even their hardened muscles were starting to ache. It would be just an hour or so more before they reached their final destination in Glen Urquhart, the valley running down to Loch Ness. For Veitch, the surroundings were still haunted by his memories of the hunt for the Questing Beast and the subsequent battle that had left him only a hairsbreadth from death.

They came up on the site Tom had identified on the map just before midnight; it was the place where Veitch had found the remains of one of the Questing Beast's victims, but the body was no longer there.

Corrimony was the home of a chambered cairn made of water-worn stone taken from the nearby river Enrick. It lay in green pasture at the foot of pinecovered hills, swathed in an atmosphere of abiding peace.

"Can you feel it?" Tom's voice was almost lost beneath the breeze.

Electricity buzzed in the soles of Veitch's feet, sending not-unpleasant crackles up to his knees. When he held up his hand, the faintest blue nimbus limned it against the dark of the landscape. "Bloody hell," he said in hushed awe.

"Since the Well of Fire at Edinburgh was ignited, this part of the land has come alive. At the right time, in the right atmosphere, it's quite potent." Tom squatted down and stretched out an arm. When his finger was an inch from the sward a blue spark jumped between them.

"What are you going to do?"

"What Shavi would have done if he'd been here, only not as well. I learnt bits and pieces from the Culture, but not enough. I'm not a natural like he was. The Pendragon Spirit is an unbroken chain linking Shavi to the ancient races that set up these things, the ones who preserved their knowledge in the land. He was a lightning rod, attracting it all to him." Tom dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into the claustrophobically low tunnel that led into the heart of the cairn. Veitch heard his voice float back, although the words were obviously not meant for him. "I'm not much good for anything, really."

Veitch followed until they were both sitting on the damp stone flags, backs against the rough rock walls, the stars scattered overhead.

"In times past you wouldn't have seen the night sky." Tom's voice echoed oddly against the stones. "There would have been a roof over us. Probably torn down by some stupid farmer to make his field boundaries. That brief journey through the tunnel into here is one of those symbols I spoke about earlier."

"The new language?" Veitch thought for a second. "The true language."

"It was a mark of distinction, between the real world without and the Otherworld here, a shadowy place where the outside rules didn't hold. It was supposed to symbolise death, too, and birth, or rebirth. Here, we are reborn into a new world of mystery and magic." He took out the tin in which he kept his hash. "Here we are stoned, inznzaculate. "

"I know that one," Veitch said. "The Doors."

Tom slowly rolled a joint, crumbling a portion of hash into the tobacco. "Then you had better prepare yourself for weird scenes inside the goldmine."

"A mate of mine used to smoke all the time. Off his face, morning, noon and night. Didn't mind the odd one myself, like, just to chill, but I couldn't do it like he could."

"Then he was a very stupid person. Would you buy a missile launcher and go out taking potshots? These drugs are sacramental. Those who use them for hedonism are like stupid children stealing the church wine."

"What do you mean?"

"Crowley had it right." Tom looked up from his task, saw the blank look on Veitch's face. "Aleister Crowley. A self-styled magician a few decades back. He was actually quite good, though I'd never have told the arrogant bastard to his face. I spent a weekend with him at Boleskin House, his place here on the shores of Loch Ness. He summoned up what he thought was the god Pan. I think it was Cernunnos playing games with him, but I digress. Crowley had no time for people who used drugs like a few pints down the local, because he knew the power of them; their capacity for touching the sacred. Throughout history ancient cultures have used psychoactive substances for breaking the barrier between the real world and the invisible world. That's why I use them, and why Shavi used them."

Veitch nodded thoughtfully. Tom thought how like a schoolboy he looked, taking a lesson from a stern master.

"So what's going to happen?"

"I don't know."

"Jesus!"

"I told you-I'm no expert. I'm just trying to do the best I can. This is the right spot, a powerful spot. The drug will condition our minds. Then we'll try to make contact with something that can help us."

Veitch cursed. "I wish you'd told me this before. I wouldn't be sitting here with you now."

"Why do you think I didn't tell you before?"

"You know what it sounds like to me? The Deerhunter. Bleedin' Russian roulette. All the things out there… Christ! You're saying we should call something in and take a chance it's something good. Shit!"

"If you put your faith in the universe, it often helps you out."

"What, if you jump off a bridge something will catch you?"

"Now you're being silly." He lit the joint, took a long draught, then passed it over to Veitch. "This is a ceremony-"

"No more Doors, all right? Get with the decade."

Tom slowly raised his eyes to the glittering stars. Beyond the cairn they could hear the wind shuffling through the trees. "Old stories."

"What?"

"Myths and legends are our way of glimpsing the true language of existence. In them we can see the archetypes. The real meaning of numbers and words and symbols. Those talismans you fought so hard for-they are not simply a Sword, a Spear, a Stone and a Cauldron. The Sword is the elemental power of air and represents intellect. The Spear is fire, the spirit. The Cauldron is water, compassion. The Stone is earth, existence. We just have to be clever. Ignore the worldview imposed on us by the Age of Reason. We have to go back to sensing the mystery at the heart of life. That is the only way forward."

"So we tell each other stories?"

"All of human society is based on stories, Ryan. They're not just words, they're alive; powerful. There's a theory about things called memes. In essence, they're ideas that act like viruses. You put an idea out into the world-tell it to a friend, get him to pass it on-and soon the idea filters out into society and everyone begins to alter their way of behaving to take the new idea on board. The idea-one person's idea-has actually changed the shape of society. That's the modern way of explaining it. Stories are memes, very powerful ones, because they speak directly to the subconscious using archetypes." He watched Witch's face intently, still surprised the Londoner could maintain his concentration; perhaps he truly was changing. "Stories shape lives. People pick up little lessons from them, believe a certain way to act is the correct way, grow more like their heroes. If you have stories riddled with cynicism, the world will grow more like them, over time. Our myths today are Hollywood movies and TV. In America, in the eighties, there was a crime series called Hill Street Blues. The police who saw it started to mimic the way the characters acted, altered the way they went about their business on the streets. An entire culture was changed by one story. In ancient Sumeria the citizens took on board the worldview expressed by their archetypal hero Gilgamesh. He defined them."

Veitch coughed and spluttered as the smoke burned his lungs. "I get it. Down in Deptford I knew some villains-small-time wankers, you know-they saw that film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and started dressing and talking like the geezers in it."

"Exactly. Stories are our dreams, Ryan, and we dream our society and our reality. If we dream hard enough, we can make it what we want. If we dream hard enough."

"Shavi said something to me like that."

"Oh?"

"Not the same, really. But like it. He said if I dreamed myself as a hero I would be. If I saw myself as a sad loser, that's the way I'd stay."

"Everything is fluid, Ryan. Nothing is fixed."

Veitch rubbed his eyes as Tom appeared to grow hazy; he didn't know if it was a trick of the drugs or if it was really happening. His attention moved to the dark rocks of the cairn walls. Occasionally ripples of blue light flickered amongst them. In that place it felt like anything could happen. He steeled himself. Tom's quiet, lilting voice was like a magical spell, weaving an atmosphere of change around him.

"I know what you're talking about," Veitch heard himself saying. "You want us to dream up some of those old stories to show us what to do. Arky-what?"

"Archetypes. Symbols that take the shape of something we can understand. Things that speak with power."

"Listen!" Veitch started. "Did you hear that?" It had sounded to him like a hunting horn, echoing mournfully along the glen.

Tom was watching him like a raptor. "What are you dreaming up, Ryan?" he asked softly.

"I don't know." Had he really heard it? An image of the Wild Hunt intruded roughly on his mind and he began to panic.

Tom placed a calming hand on his knee. "Something is rising from your subconscious-"

"Can this place do that?" The drug gave an edge of anxiety to Veitch's thoughts.

"The Blue Fire is the base stuff of everything, Ryan. It's there to be shaped and controlled, and this place was designed to focus that ability."

"Things are happening." Veitch chewed on a knuckle. He felt he could hear something moving through the deeply wooded slopes of the glen away near Loch Ness, although it was obviously too far for any sound to truly travel. "I was thinking of Robin Hood. When you were talking about stories… It was something my dad read to me once…"

"The slightest thought, if focused enough, would be all it takes, Ryan."

"But Robin Hood, like… I remember what Ruth said. That was one of the names for-"

"Cernunnos, yes. The gods are archetypes given form, but the archetypes are bigger than them." He paused. "I'm not making any sense, am I?" He took another drag on the joint, as if determined to make it worse. "But perhaps that is the right archetype for this moment, Ryan. You may think the thought surfaced randomly, but there is no coincidence in this world."

"Robin Hood." Veitch's voice was heavy with anticipation; the atmosphere in the cairn was charged. The blue light had grown stronger, unwavering now, casting a sapphire tint over everything. He took the joint back and drew on it deeply. The sharpness of the rocks faded into the background and the light took on greater depth.

"Robin Hood," Tom mused. "The hunter in the deep, dark forest of the night. The rebellious force against the oppressive control of rigid authority. Wild creativity opposing the structured thought of the Age of Reason."

The words washed over Veitch, whatever meaning they held seeping into him on some level beyond hearing. Another blast of the hunting horn, not too far away. Now Veitch could tell it was different from the sound of the Wild Hunt's horn; not so menacing, almost hopeful.

"But be careful." Tom's warning sounded as if it came from the depths of a well. "If you lose control of the archetype, its power can overwhelm you, tear you apart."

"I wish you hadn't said that," Veitch snapped. "It's a bleedin' meme, isn't it? It's in my bleedin' head now."

"At least you were paying attention." Tom took several calming breaths; Witch realised the hippie felt anxious too. "My warning will focus your mind. You won't lose control."

"Yeah. Keep telling me that."

Feet rattled the stones on the road beyond the gate of the cairn compound. Rhythmic breathing that could have been a man's but was more like an animal's filled the air.

"He's here," Tom said, redundantly.

Veitch felt his muscles clench with tension, barely able to believe it was something he had done, and with such little effort; but that tiny, out-of-the-way place felt so supercharged he was convinced he could do anything here.

"Speak to him," Tom whispered.

"Me?" More panic; that wasn't one of his strengths, but then he thought how well Shavi would have done in the situation and that gave him the courage to continue. "Hello." His voice sounded too fragile. He tried again, stronger this time.

The sound of scrabbling echoed as something moved up the side of the cairn, seeking footholds amongst the tightly packed stones. A silhouette appeared over the rim, looking down at them.

"Hello," he repeated once more.

The figure squatted on the roof's edge, watching them both sitting crosslegged on the stone flags. As it shifted, Veitch caught sight of a face filled with wisdom and kindliness, but also righteous defiance. There was certainly a beard, but while he saw the features, they were forgotten in an instant after his eyes lighted on them; this was all faces, all humanity boiled down. The indefinable, tight-fitting clothes were of the Lincoln Green he had anticipated from his storybook of old, but at times they appeared to be vegetation rather than fabric or leather; and growing out of the figure itself. Strapped across his back was a bow of gnarled wood that also seemed oddly organic.

"I heard your call." His voice, which came from everywhere at once, was comforting and fatherly; the tension eased in Witch's shoulders immediately.

Instinctively, he knew how to talk to the visitor and what to say. "We're looking for help. Guidance." He was surprised to hear his own voice sounded disembodied too. "We've got this big job to do. A big heroes' job. Saving the world and all that. But things have gone pear shaped. We don't know what to do next."

The figure stood up gracefully and walked slowly widdershins around the precarious lip of what remained of the roof. Veitch watched his progress until he grew dizzy. Then, after what felt like an age, the figure spoke. "Every story is like a wave crashing against a beach, and there are as many stories as there are waves. There is the height when the sun sparkles on the white crest and the dark trough when shadow turns the water to slate. Each appears the end of something, but it is only when the surf runs over the sand that the equal importance of both can be seen in the journey to the shore." He turned on his heel and began his circular journey in the opposite direction. "In your story, times are unduly dark, but you maintain hope; I feel it shining from within you, and that is good for the heroes' work. I feel, too, your pain at the loss of one close to you."

A deep silence fell over the scene; waiting.

"We need five of us to continue," Veitch began. "There have to be five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You know, the Pendragon Spirit. One's dead now. What are we going to do?"

"There are no boundaries." The words echoed amongst the stones. "The emerald silence of the green wood stretches on to infinity. You pass through wooded acres and appear to move on, to a new place and new sights, but it is the same wood."

Veitch was struggling to understand, but he knew perfectly why the archetype was continually speaking in metaphors, the root of the true language.

The figure squatted down once more to look at them, as if invisible cycles had come into alignment, focusing its intent. "The shaman is gone, but he can be returned."

"Shavi?"

"You may fetch him back from the Grim Lands, the Grey Lands."

"How?" Tom interjected. "There is no return for our kind."

"Special circumstances have seen fit to forge a pathway. The link still remains between the shaman's corporeal form and his essence."

Witch looked to Tom, puzzled but hopeful. The Rhymer pondered on this information briefly, then asked, "What special circumstances-"

"Your patron has chosen to preserve his form-"

"Cernunnos," Tom said.

"It resides in a bower, ready to be wakened." The archetype rose and looked towards the dark horizon as if something were calling it.

"Where?" Tom asked.

"On the Hill of Giants, where the Night Rider awaits his challenges. But time is short. The protection is diminishing and soon the link will be broken."

"How long have we got?" Veitch was afraid the information had come too late for them to act on it.

"Not long."

It was a vague answer, but it was obvious the archetype would not or could not elucidate. It began to ease back down the slope of the cairn. "Now-"

"Wait," Veitch said humbly. "Can I walk with you? Just for a while?"

The archetype paused, then held out a shadowy hand. It felt like velvet in Witch's fingers. The archetype hauled him out effortlessly and they both slipped down to the ground. Veitch felt uplifted, sensing on some deep level the heroic essence. It felt more like energy crackling in the air than a person at his side, but when he cast a surreptitious glance, it was unmistakably Robin Hood. They moved across the road to the nature reserve beyond, keeping low like animals. Veitch was sure some of whatever constituted the archetype was rubbing off on him. His senses were sharpened, his spirit was soaring, as if he had consumed a quantity of drugs or was in the grip of some spiritual fervour.

When they had crossed a barbed wire fence into a field on the valley slopes, Veitch couldn't contain himself any longer. "Show me," he whispered like a child.

The archetype seemed to smile. In one fluid movement it took the bow from its back, fitted an oddly fashioned arrow and loosed it. Veitch heard the twang as the arrow neatly severed the top strand of barbed wire on the fence about thirty yards further down the field.

"'mazing." He did feel like a child again; a wizened memory of playing one of Robin Hood's Mettle Men in a Greenwich backstreet was given new flesh. It was the kind of feeling adults spent all their life searching for, but which he had convinced himself didn't exist anywhere in society. And perhaps it hadn't before; but now things were different.

The archetype appeared to read his thoughts. With an expansive gesture, it said, "This night is magic, alive with potential. Here you are connected to the infinite."

His feeling of exaltation grew stronger until every part of his body was tingling. He felt heady from the potency of the experience; it was truly religious, like he was about to turn towards the face of God. "What does this all mean?" he sighed.

"This is how existence should be." The archetype knelt on one knee to touch the grass gently. "Dreams start within, then grow bigger until one can live within them. There are no boundaries; anything can happen. Fluidity, hope, expression." He fixed a gaze on Veitch that was almost electric. "Mythologies were never intended to be only stories. Dream hard enough and you can exist within them: neither reality, nor fantasy: just one realm of infinite possibilities." He made another wide gesture. "Look. The stories live. All of this exists within the age of heroes, as it was intended."

When Veitch looked around, he noticed for the first time shadowy figures standing away on the field boundaries or amongst the nearby trees: old heroes, some he recognised, with shining swords and armour, crowns and shields, but many he did not; yet he felt he knew them all. The wonder washed over him in such force he was driven to his knees.

It was at least an hour later when Veitch made his way back to the cairn. A shooting star cut an arc across the sky. Tom was still inside, smoking the remnants of a joint while humming gently to himself.

"Weren't you worried about me?" Veitch said as he emerged from the tunnel, his face beatific.

"I knew you were in good hands. Did he give you an education?"

Veitch was unable to restrain his smile.

"Good," Tom said. "Make the most of your contact with the great beyond for tomorrow we have a life to save and choices to make which could wipe the smile from your face."

Veitch didn't hear him; he was looking up to the stars, for the first time in his life feeling he was a part of something enormous; feeling that there really was hope for him.