'I don't understand how you could tell from Gregor's tarot that it would be in Glastonbury,' I said.
'Like many who profess to learn magic,' Blackbird explained, 'he's learned to trust his intuition and interpret things in unconventional ways. It's not the cards themselves, it's how he handles them and what they mean to him.'
'But he turned over The Tower. That's how you knew where they'd taken the orb.'
'He's using the tarot to learn the location of an object — it's like dowsing, but with cards. He's standing on the top of a Way-node, where the whole of the Ways are being distorted by the thing he's trying to find. Even then he was nearly overwhelmed by his own premonition of death.'
'Is he going to die, then?' I asked.
'We're all going to die, Niall. It's simply a matter of when. Like much of humanity, he's obsessed with his own mortality. As he gets older, it gets worse.'
'I suppose the Feyre don't have that problem,' I said. 'Living so much longer frees them from that obsession.'
'Only to be prey to other obsessions,' she said. 'Look at the sky.'
I leaned across to look out. The edge of Glastonbury had given way to fields, trees and hedgerows, but where before the sky had been a uniform layer of grey moulded hills and valleys, now it had twisted, forming a bruised huge spiral, tinted with purple and yellow. I had a feeling I knew where the spiral was centred.
'Has that just happened?' I asked her.
'It's getting worse as we get closer.'
'You mean we can see more of it as we get closer?' I said.
'We should have been able to see this from Glastonbury, it's big enough, and it hasn't just formed. The weather is different here — not just a change in the same weather, but different weather.'
'But it's the same sky,' I said.
'Is it?' As she stared at the sky, there was an ominous flickering within. 'I'm not sure we're even looking at the same world any more.'
The cab slowed down and halted in a gateway. 'This is as far as I go,' he said.
I could see the Tor stark against the moving sky, through the trees ahead. 'Can't you take us a bit further,' I asked. 'It'll be quite a walk from here.'
'I'm not going any further,' he said, leaning forward and looking up through the windscreen. 'I've seen storms, but that's a bad one. If you want to get out here, you're welcome, but if I was you I'd come back into town, find a nice tea room and sit it out.'
'We'll get out here,' said Blackbird.
She shuffled across, and I slid back the door so we could exit. As soon as we were out, he revved the engine and did a rapid U-turn, not even waiting for me to close the door.
'Hey,' I called, 'we haven't paid you!'
There was a harsh grating sound as he missed the gear and then accelerated back down the lane, leaving us standing by the side of the road. As the sound of the engine died away, I realised there was absolute quiet. The wind had dropped and there was no birdsong, or even the distant sound of a tractor or a motor-bike. That changed as there was a flicker in the clouds, passing from one to another along the outward spiral, so that it seemed that even the lightning wanted to escape. A few moments later there was a low rumble, more felt than heard.
'Come on,' said Blackbird. 'With luck we'll get there before it decides to rain.'
She set off towards the outline of the tower on the Tor.
Thinking on what Blackbird had said, it occurred to me that what we were looking at might not be real. What if she was right? What if we were looking at a different world, a kind of pocket of existence with the orb at its centre. Was it like the Glade, the pocket world inhabited by the rogue fey who lured unwary sleepers there to feed on them by proxy? I had escaped that by pricking the heart at its centre. Could I do that here?
I let myself relax and began absorbing energy from my surroundings. I gathered power from the road beneath me, the air around me. The air chilled, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The world dimmed and I began to see the world with my wraithkin sense. It was filled with lines of force, distortions in the very fabric of reality like lines made by a magnet in iron filings. From nowhere, something cannoned into me, knocking me backwards.
I staggered back, missing my footing on the edge of the road and tumbling backwards into a dry ditch at the edge of the road. Winded, I lost my grip on the power and it slipped from me, returning my vision to normal. Blackbird was lying on top of me.
'What…?' I said, still winded.
'Idiot!' she said. 'Look up!'
From my position on my back underneath her, I looked up at the sky. In the giant spiral centred over the Tor, another minispiral had formed, right over my head, circling within the greater spiral. As we lay there, all the hairs on my body stood on end.
'Stay down!' she warned.
There was a painfully bright flash, right where I had been standing. My ears popped as the sound-wave hit us and the world echoed with a crack that shook my bones. The smell of chlorine and ozone, and the taste of burned metal, filled my mouth and nose.
I swore loudly, but though the word formed on my tongue, I couldn't hear myself. It was like being wrapped in cotton wool. Blackbird pressed me down, waiting, glancing briefly up. The spiral above me whirled away down the arm of the greater vortex, stabbing down occasional arcs of brightness onto the surrounding fields, accompanied by sharp cracks which even my muted ears could hear.
Gradually my hearing returned to normal.
Blackbird levered herself up hesitantly, pressing her hand on my chest.
'It's OK,' she said. 'Not safe, but OK.'
She scrambled up out of the ditch and I crawled out after her. In the road where I had been standing was a small smoking pit where the tarmac had melted.
'What happened?' I asked.
'When you use power, you take some from your surroundings,' she said, 'and the largest source of energy nearby would be that huge cloud above your head. Did you never think to look up?' she asked.
'I was too busy looking at… it's all being pulled inwards,' I said. 'Space itself is being pulled in.'
'If you decide to do that again, make sure you're nowhere near me,' she said, and turned and walked away.
I ran after her as she walked briskly up the lane towards the hill with the stark tower on the top.
'I'm not sure you heard me,' I said. 'It's already started.'
She stopped. 'I know. What do you want me to say? Shall we just stand here and wait for the end?'
I shrugged. 'I'm not sure there's anything we can do.'
'You're worse than Gregor,' she said. 'Never ever give in, even unto the end of the universe itself. There's always hope, Niall.'
Nevertheless, when she started back down the lane to the Tor, she was running.
TWENTY
After the hurried dash down the lanes, the Tor was a climb I didn't need, no matter how much fitter I'd become. Even so, Blackbird paced ahead of me. We made our way up the path, but we could already see it had begun. The clouds twisted down and opened out over the summit, revealing a dark vista on infinity. I ran up the path after her, but then slowed as I met an invisible resistance. I caught up with her where she pushed against it.
'What is it?' I asked, grimacing as I pushed against the unseen barrier.
Beyond, at the peak of the hill I could see three figures clustered around a fourth. It was easy to recognise my own daughter as one of them.
'Gregor said that the orb wards itself,' she said, gritting her teeth and trying to pull herself onwards. She
