'I don't think it would be wise after midnight,' Church said.
'So far the Fomorii have confined themselves to the out-of-the-way places, the lonely places,' Shavi began. 'Why do you think they are here, at this time?'
'Because,' Tom replied, 'the Well of Fire makes this one of the most significant places in the land. In times past the Fomorii would not have been able to come within miles of this site, but now the Earth-blood is dormant. So, I presume, there is a certain frisson in colonising a place that was so important to everything they despise.'
'The dark overcoming the light,' Shavi noted.
They finished their drinks and left, their heads swimming with too much alcohol and all the doubts implanted by the spy. Outside, the unseasonal chill had grown even colder. Laura shivered. 'Jesus, it's like winter.'
The Royal Mile was deserted. Church had visited the city with Marianne for the Festival and he knew it was never so dead. An eerie stillness lay oppressively over everything; no lights burned in any windows, the late-night coffee shop was closed, even the street lights seemed dim.
They didn't need any prompting to move hastily back to the hotel. But as they made their way up Lawnmarket towards the spotlit bulk of the castle, the night dropped several more degrees and their breath bloomed all around them. A dim blue light seeped out of Ramsay Lane, although they couldn't tell if it was some optical illusion caused by the stark illumination of the castle. As they drew closer, however, there was no doubt. The sapphire glow emanated from somewhere along the road they had travelled earlier that evening, casting long shadows across their path; the shadows moved slightly, as if the light was not fixed.
'Police?' Shavi suggested.
Tom was unusually reticent. 'I don't think so.'
A deep hoar frost sparkled on the road and gleamed on the windows near where Ramsay Lane turned sharply. They marvelled at the display of cold in the first thrust of summer, but then a dark shape suddenly lurched into view and they all jumped back a step. Veitch quickly moved in front of them, lowering his centre of gravity ready to fight. The shape moved slowly, awkwardly, in a stiff-limbed manner; they saw it was a man with long black hair and a bushy beard they had seen drinking in the pub-except now his hair and beard was white with frost and his skin had a faint blue sheen that shimmered in the street light. He slumped against a wall, saw Church and the others and reached out a pleading hand. A faint strangled sound escaped his throat which they presumed was a cry for help.
As they ran forward, he crumpled to the pavement, still.
Laura went to turn him over, then snatched back her hand. 'Ow! Too cold to touch.'
Shavi blew on his hands, then quickly pressed two fingers against the man's neck. 'No pulse.'
'What do you think, Tom?' Church said.
It was only when the Rhymer didn't answer that they realised he wasn't with them. They looked up to see him standing at the top of Ramsay Lane, staring towards the source of the blue light. His expression had grown even more troubled.
As the others ran back to his side they were shocked to see the whole of Ramsay Lane was covered in ice, as if it had been transported to the middle of the Antarctic. At the bottom of the winding street the blue light glowed brightly. It was bobbing gently in their direction and at the heart of it they thought they could make out a dark figure. As it moved, the ice on the surrounding buildings grew noticeably thicker.
'What is it?' Church asked in hushed amazement.
Tom's voice was choked so low Church could barely hear the reply. 'The Cailleach Bheur.'
'In English,' Laura snapped.
He looked at her with eyes shocked and wide. 'The Blue Hag, spirit of winter. Quickly, now!' He roughly pushed them until they were moving hurriedly back down the Royal Mile, the way they had come. Tom kept them to the middle of the road and only calmed once they had turned off the High Street on to the broad thoroughfare of the North Bridge. Once they were firmly over Waverley Station he slumped against a wall, one hand on his face.
'What was that?' Church asked forcefully.
It was a moment or two before Tom answered, 'One of the most primal forces of this land.'
Church couldn't help glancing over his shoulder towards the shadowshrouded Old Town. 'Fomorii?'
'No, nor of the Tuatha De Danann. Like the Fabulous Beasts, the Blue Hag and her sisters are a higher power, almost impossible to control. Yet the Fomorii have somehow bent her to their will, like they did with the first Fabulous Beast you encountered. They have her patrolling the Old Town like some guard dog, leaving them free to carry on their business.'
'She's some kind of evil witch?' Veitch said hesitantly.
Tom turned a cold gaze on him. 'If the deepest, coldest, darkest, harshest winter is evil. The Cailleach Bheur is a force of nature. Nothing can survive her touch.'
'You know, hag doesn't sound too frightening when you think about it. It makes you think of bath chairs and whist drives that never end-'
Tom's glare stopped Laura in her tracks. 'The Cailleach Bheur controls the fimbulwinter. If she unleashes it the entire planet will freeze and all life will be destroyed.'
'That sounds like a tremendous power for the Fomorii to influence,' Church said.
'It's a mark of their confidence. Or their arrogance.' Tom put his head back and took a deep breath. Some of the strength returned to his face. 'It will have taken a tremendous ritual, an appalling sacrifice, for them to control her, and even then it will undoubtedly be for only a short while. They really are playing with fire this time.'
'Bad joke, old man.' Laura rattled a stone across the road with her boot. 'And this thing has sisters?'
'Black Annis, the devourer of children, who makes her home in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. And Gentle Annie, who controls the storms.'
'I think I prefer that last one,' she said.
'The name is ironic,' Tom said, 'and designed to placate her. You wouldn't want to be caught in one of her storms.'
Church recalled Black Annis from his university studies. 'But the scholars believe the myth of Black Annis grew out of the Celtic worship of Dann or Ann, the Mother of the Danann.'
'The same provenance,' Tom snapped, 'but very different.'
The night in the New Town was summery and relaxing, but a blast of wind filled with icy fingers rushed down from the hill, as if to remind them what lay only a short distance away.
'Then to get to the Fomorii, wherever they might be, we have to go past the Blue Hag,' Church said.
Tom nodded. 'And in the minds of the old people, the Cailleach Bheur was another name for Death.'
His voice drifted out on the chill wind that spread out across the city.
Chapter Four
In daylight the Old Town seemed less oppressive, but there was still an uneasy undercurrent which made them keen to move through it quickly. Witch wondered if the authorities had any idea what was happening among the jumbled clutter of ancient buildings; although it hadn't been sealed off, the tourist office was closed and the crowds that moved in the historic sector were even thinner than on the previous day. The body of the frozen man had been removed.
From the Royal Mile they stopped to survey their destination. The extinct volcano of Arthur's Seat presented them with the curve of Salisbury Crags, dark and formidable.
'At least 350 million years since it last erupted,' Laura said, consulting the tourist guide she had shoplifted earlier; Church had been forced to return to the bookshop to pay for it. 'But with our luck…'
'This is an ancient landscape,' Tom mused. 'There were people hunting here nine thousand years ago.'
'Wow, that's even older than you,' Laura Jibed.
He harrumphed under his breath. The others couldn't understand how he always fell for Laura's Jibes. 'You know, the Celts recognised the importance of this place,' he continued with his back to Laura. 'The Castle Rock was
