The Chalice

SEVENTEEN

The sky over the Tor was, for a moment, as bright and shiny as the membrane over a cow's eye. And then it blistered, lost its focus; A fan of flickering colours sprayed up behind the tower before the ragged-edged clouds closed in, like the night coming back, and there was a low roaring like thunder deep underground, and Don Moulder got scared.

He was a superstitious man. Weren't all good farmers superstitious? Wasn't this what it was all about? Understanding nature. Getting a feeling for nature. 'Cause nature, whatever they said, nature wasn't scientific. And a dawn that wouldn't decide whether to break was not in Don Moulder's previous experience, not even living where he did.

So Don, as a superstitious man, thought straight off. They done wrong. The whole thing. Wrong. Christians and pagans. Conciliation, you can't have it. Isn't meant. There is but one God and He is sore offended. And not only at the trendy bishop and the crazy pagan actress, neither of whom was up to the job. Not only at them, but at the bloody ole mad farmer who'd brought back Satan's buzz. Why the hell had he ever done that?

Miss Diane. She'd brought that thing in. Miss bloody Lady Loony. What she'd got, it was catching.

The heavens over the Tor, still locked in debate, had gone into black and white. Like Dame Wanda's cloak. Another Lady Loony. All drawn to that abnormal hill. Maybe Griff Daniel was right when he said they oughter ram a JCB through Glastonbury Tor. No more Tor, no more loonies, no more bad dreams for honest God-fearing farmers.

All of a sudden, the sky above the tower went as black as Old Nick's arsehole and there was a great loud crack that had Don Moulder backing off in something like cold terror.

She saw the pale lightball again. It shimmered like a second chance, but she made the black mist cloud over it. Out of the foetid, feral-scented air, Ceridwen spoke and the voice came gutturally, like a burp, from out of Diane's own solar plexus.

There, that's better.

Ceridwen smiled and stood before her. Diane felt very weak, enormously relieved. But the relief enclosed an equally enormous sense of loss which she couldn't comprehend. It was like a nightmare where you'd done something frightfully wrong but awoke before you could put it right, and so the relief was relief only at having awakened.

There were more smiles. She saw little Rozzie, her monkey face split in two with glee; Mort, with his braided hair and his warrior's face and, inside his robe, the biggest dick you ever saw. She squirmed in the hospital bed. Visiting time? But it wasn't right. Was it?

'Welcome, sister.' Ceridwen stood in the misty candlelight between the great, grey concrete pillars, her serpentine hair alive with electricity. 'Welcome to the Inner Circle.'

'Where's it gone?'

'It? Why, it's gone about its business,' Ceridwen said.

Ceridwen had been with her forever. She must accept this.

Diane giggled. She did. She felt better. The truth was she'd never been so relieved. That was the truth, wasn't it?

She clutched the darkness to her body, wallowed in the dank, cloudy vapour, got high on the stench.

A man she didn't know said, 'I think there's someone outside.'

'So let them in. It's probably Gwyn. You remember Gwyn, don't you Diane?'

When the wooden doors opened, Diane expected a great and hurtful surge of daylight, but thankfully there was only more darkness. And people.

'Well, my goodness,' said Ceridwen, and she no longer looked quite so happy. 'If it isn't sister Carey.'

St was like entering an elf's house in a children's storybook, but vaster inside; the hall of the Mountain King, the subterranean lair of Gwyn ap Nudd.

In fact, it was a small storage reservoir, half underground, with a mound over it like a tumulus. It must have been out of commission for over twenty years judging by the size of some of the trees which overgrew it. But it was the dream temple. A hollow shell inside organic matter. Directly on the ley. Virtually under the Tor itself. Any time other than this, Powys would have been fascinated.

Inside, there were no trappings of a temple, white or black. No pentagrams, no inverted crosses. Only a few dark couches and rugs between the utility concrete pillars, brown-stained like nicotine fingers. Bizarrely, in the very centre of the former reservoir, there was a utility hospital bed, metal framed, white sheeted.

Diane lay on it.

She'd lost a lot of weight. She had an unhealthy pallor, obvious even down here. She inspected them curiously, her mouth tilted into a smile you could only call complacent.

She showed no relief at their arrival.

For the first time, Powys saw Ceridwen, a heavy, wild-haired woman, an old hippy gone to seed. She was studying Juanita in the light of candles held by others, men and women in ratty looking robes.

'You look well,' she said to Juanita, possibly surprised.

'That's because I'm one of your failures, Ceridwen,' Juanita smiled pleasantly, the goddess shining in her – Ceridwen would see that.

'I don't have failures,' Ceridwen said coldly. 'Some things merely take longer than others.'

'Well,' Juanita was brisk. 'We won't waste your time. We've come to collect Diane.'

Smiles vanished, but Ceridwen seemed unfazed. 'So take her. Why not? Diane, look who's here.'

Juanita said, 'Diane?'

Diane wore a black nightdress. It didn't look right on her. Or maybe – Powys acknowledged a cold feeling in his gut – maybe it did.

'Diane?' Juanita said again, approaching tentatively.

Powys just hoping it wasn't too late, praying the girl would see the light around her and rush to her.

Diane gave Juanita an uncharacteristically coquettish smile.

'Fuck off,' she said sweetly. Behind her, the big wooden doors closed and a shutter clanged in Powys's head.

'OK.' Juanita turned abruptly away from the bed. Powys thought she must be a good deal less cool than she looked.

Forehead furrowed, she faced Ceridwen close up. 'What exactly have you done?'

'I've set her free,' Ceridwen said simply. 'Haven't I, Diane?'

'Yes, Nanny,' Diane said and giggled.

Powys said, 'She's told her about Archer.'

'Of course,' Ceridwen said to Juanita, goddess to goddess, dark to light.

'And she's conjured DF's pet elemental?' Powys said. 'The wolf from the North?'

'And sent it on its way!' Ceridwen's voice ringing. 'If you only knew the beauty of it, Mr J.M. Powys.' But still looking at Juanita.

'You want to explain it to me?'

Ceridwen smiled at Juanita.

'I'll tell you, then,' Powys said, realising, with a feeling of deep sickness, that he could. 'Goes back to 1919. When Roger Ffitch had the opportunity to lure DF – even then potentially the strongest magician in the whole of the Western Tradition – on to the dark path. By exposing her to the Chalice.'

Ceridwen didn't react.

'And possibly his cock,' Powys said. 'Because Roger wasn't subtle.'

If they were going to get Diane out of here, they'd have to play for time. Sam's fires would bring people – any people would do.

'All she had to do.' Powys said, 'was release that black elemental force against him. The Dark Chalice – him being a Ffitch – would have shielded him. And both of them would have lived happily and Satanically ever after. They might even have married. Right?'

Ceridwen turned at last to look at him.

'Unfortunately,' Powys said, 'it rebounded. As these things often do.'

'Seldom do,' Ceridwen said.

'But then you would say that, wouldn't you?'

Making himself meet her brooding, dark brown gaze.

'Being a crazy old ratbag.' He smiled at her, his insides freezing up at her expression. This woman was steeped in it.

'Anyway,' he said. 'She did produce it. But she immediately saw what she'd done and eventually she gets it back. Which was tough, a lot tougher than letting it go. But it made her a better person and stronger. Better equipped, anyway, to deal with what she'd stumbled on.'

Ceridwen's steady gaze was a long tunnel, no light at the end. No end, in fact.

'The Chalice,' Powys said. 'A receptacle for evil. Naturally, she wanted to destroy it. The way she'd wanted to destroy Roger Ffitch. But the very act of destruction was negative and it rebounded. Violet was very confused.'

'She could have had it all,' Ceridwen said.

'If that's your idea of having it all,' Powys said mildly. 'It just shows how bloody shallow you bastards are. Anyway she went back to Dr Moriarty for advice and maybe he put her on to a third party – not an occultist, but certainly a visionary. Someone already obsessed with the concept of the Holy Grail.'

He held on to Ceridwen's gaze, talking slowly, holding the floor. Aware of Juanita moving closer to Diane.

'John Cowper Powys. A man with a lot of personal hang-ups. A seriously flawed character. But a bit older than Violet. And smart. I can hear DF and JCP talking long into the night, working out the implications of Grail versus anti-Grail.'

'And realising,' Ceridwen said, 'as you obviously cannot grasp, that they were dealing with a very ancient duality.'

'That everything has its negative? That without evil, how could we comprehend good?'

'That without the sterility of what you naively call good,' said Ceridwen, 'we cannot appreciate the beauty of what you call evil.'

'Bloody hell, Ruth,' Powys said admiringly, 'you'll be converting me.'

'I wouldn't want you as a convert,' Ceridwen said. 'You're no more use than your grandfather or whatever he was.'

'Probably not,' Powys conceded. 'But they did manage it, didn't they? DF would have decided they needed to conduct a binding ritual. To put the Chalice itself – if not the force behind it – into cold storage. And give the Ffitches at least a chance of salvation. It would've been JCP who worked out how to do it, how to put the arm on Roger – who, by now, was back into his nightmares and vulnerable.

So they bound the Chalice. To the general benefit of mankind. But no help to the Ffitches. Their fortunes hit the skids. Since when…' He shrugged, '… the Dark Chalice has become a legendary prize for, um, certain species of spiritual pond-life.'

The tall guy with the pigtail stepped forward, holding his metal candlestick like a sword. 'You don't have to take this.'

'Let him finish.'

'I'm nearly there anyway.' Thinking of Diane in the hospital bed, Ceridwen, the nurse, an idea was forming. To liberate the Dark Chalice and whatever it represents, you had to actually corrupt the spirit of DF. Which is no small undertaking. It involved creating and developing a whole person. You were there when Diane was born, weren't you?'

'Yes.' Ceridwen looked uncertain and then her face broke into a beam, like the sun actually shining out of an arse, he thought. 'Yes. She knows that. I was her midwife.'

He imagined Juanita's eyes opening wider at that. She was no more than a couple of yards away from where Diane lay seemingly unaware of any of them through the residual haze of whatever she'd been given to sedate her.

'I don't know what you planted in that baby,' he said. 'But you obviously thought you had to kill her mother to keep it alive.'

'Archer killed their mother,' Ceridwen said sharply. 'It was quite simple. He was a child, with a child's simplistic views. She was coming between him and his dreams of restoring the family's wealth and influence.'

'I bet he didn't do it on his own, though.'

'You're fantasising, Mr J.M. Powys. But that's your profession, isn't it?'

'I bet you had a little tug on the old umbilical, didn't you, Ruth?'

Her face told him it was inspired. Thank you, God. Thank you, DF. Thank you, Uncle Jack.

Ceridwen recovered rapidly, Powys thinking how two-dimensional these people were. 'It doesn't matter now,' she said. 'Diane's beast is loose. The bind is broken. The Chalice is back in the world.'

The reservoir doors opened. Archer Ffitch stood there. He showed no surprise. He'd been here before, of course he had. He must have seen the Mini vanish in the direction of the barns and known where they were going.

'Sorry to intrude' Archer wore a dark suit, but he'd taken off his tie. He was sweating. 'But all of a sudden, one begins to feel safer down here. Tricky phase. Transition. All that. Difficult to settle. Until Oliver gets the family trophy out of the well.'

Right, Powys thought. They would have to cancel out DF before they dare uncover that well. The unbinding of the Chalice was a number of strands entwining simultaneously, something finally pulling them tight, just as Ceridwen must have sealed the fate of Lady Pennard by one wrench on the umbilicus.

He looked at Diane's face, the eyes flickering vaguely behind the twisted, narcotic glaze. It was unreal. It was insane. Diane had been brought up from birth to develop a hatred for her brother, to have that hatred fine-tuned to a pitch where it could be released as an entity in itself, dragging down the entity's original, unwitting creator.

Juanita was standing only a yard away from Diane, but it was a very long yard.

'Come down, Archer,' Ceridwen called out, almost gaily. 'We'll look after you.' She turned to Powys. 'As we always have. Ever since his schooldays. I was their matron, did you know that, at school? Archer and Oliver Pixhill. Always inseparable.'

'Let me get this right,' Juanita said. 'This would be after you were fired from the hospital in Oxfordshire for persecuting geriatrics?'

Ceridwen turned slowly and jabbed a blunt forefinger at her. 'I know what you've been doing. I know you've been leeching on DF's residue'

'Or perhaps she's been feeding me,' Juanita said softly.

'I don't care if she's been feeding you.' Ceridwen snarled. 'She's over now, Juanita. Or she's ours – she has that choice. Oblivion. Or the shadier path.'

All this time Diane had been quite silent. Sitting up in her bed like some soiled fairytale princess.

'Come on, Diane,' Juanita said.

'Yes. Go on. Do,' Ceridwen shrieked. 'Go with her, Diane. Take it out into the world.' And to Juanita, 'She'll destroy you. She was always going to destroy you. And then she'll come back. She has to.'

Powys was aware of a deepening of the atmosphere in the concrete chamber, as though it had become a hall of mirrors and went on and on until the Tor rose above it, a nightmare corruption of the Cavern Under the Hill of Dreams. A picture began to form in his head of Diane in five or ten years' time: no more the scatty but tolerable Lady Loony; instead, a fat and blackened sly-eyed whore, a parasite in high society, vampish fallen sister of the Conservative MP for Mendip South.

Fetch!

He heard it with bell-like clarity in his head. No one reacted. The silence was dull, yet charged.

And then, limping down the middle of this endless chamber, he saw – Oh, no – the familiar black and white, amiably lopsided dowser's dog.

Arnold pattered to the bed where Diane sat up. There was a ball in Arnold's mouth. A ball of pure, white light. Powys saw it and then he didn't.

Diane shrank back into the metal bars of the headboard. Powys watched, as though from far away, as though it was happening in a movie. Becoming only gradually aware that no one else was looking at the dog or the bed or Diane or him, but at the open doorway behind Archer.

Where Lord Pennard stood in heavy tweed shooting jacket and plus fours, the dawn welling wildly up behind him.

'Archer?' Pennard's voice rang like steel around the concrete chamber. 'Where are you, boy?'

'Father.' Archer didn't move. 'Go away. This is nothing to do with you. Go back to the house.'

'Who are these people. Archer?'

'Not your problem, OK? We'll talk later.'

'Is that Diane down there? I can't see.'

'Will you leave this to me?'

'I wanted very much to believe in you. Archer.' Pennard said. 'Damn it, I had to believe. To support the future For the simple sake of our continuity, I had to believe that you didn't…'

'I… didn't… kill her.' Archer ground it out through his teeth. 'What can I do to convince you? I… didn't fucking… kill my fucking mother?

'You sicken me,' Pennard said sorrowfully. 'Perhaps you always did. But now you frighten me too. And that… that is something I really can't live with.'

'Wait!' Archer moved into the pink light at the entrance, 'Listen to me! You want to know who killed her?' He turned to point into the darkness. The very heart of the darkness.

'She did. You see her? You recognise her? That's your midwife, Father. From the Belvedere clinic. Ask her. Ask her!'

The moment seemed to last forever. Archer's finger frozen in the dawn.

The finger still hanging there as Powys saw Archer's head burst like a bud into flower. A free form flower of red and pink and grey.

And by the time his brain had registered the explosion, seen the smoke from the twelve-bore, heard the shouting and the screams, Pennard was raising the gun again and the shot from the second barrel took Ceridwen in the throat and she seemed to float to her knees, astonishment in the deep brown eyes and blood pumping down the robe, splashing on the concrete as her head fell off into her lap.

There was an instant of hollow nothingness.

At first, Powys thought he was trembling. But it was the ground. The ground was trembling.

Still it didn't occur to him what was happening.

At least, not until he saw the cracks appear in the grey concrete pillars of the old storage reservoir and he thought idly what a hell of a flood there would be if it was still in use.

Then, amid the incomprehension which preceded the stampede, he saw Juanita dragging Diane from the hospital bed, and when his legs would move again he ran to help her and they pulled her, kicking and squealing out of the reservoir and into the bleak beginnings of the shortest day and the stubbly wasteland from where Sam Daniel's trio of petrol-fired beacons sent signals, too late, to Glastonbury Tor.