the Allfather, and the Great Mother. The Son of Light. When the Romans came into the Celtic lands he became associated with Apollo. When the Christians came, he was the Christ. He was linked to the sun, the giver of life. More double meanings, you see. The Good Sun.'
'What, you're saying Jesus didn't exist?' Church asked.
'Of course not,' Tom snapped. 'I'm simply saying Maponus was an archetype. An original imprint that other cultures drew on for their own myths.'
'Well, I'm glad you answered that one, then,' Veitch said sarcastically.
'He was widely worshipped throughout the world,' Tom continued. 'The Divine Youth who would lead the world back into the light; he was a great musician, the player of the lyre, a great lover, a patron of the arts, worshipped at the sacred springs and seen as a direct line to the powers of creation. Beautiful, witty and charming. But there was another side to him.' He paused. 'The Irish used to call him the Lord of Love and Death.'
The sun broke through the window, casting his distorted shadow across the wall; Church had a sudden vision of something monstrous moving across the room. 'What happened?' he asked quietly.
'I have no idea. After the great sundering, when all the old gods and creatures of myth left here for Otherworld, some of them, the ones with the greatest bond to our world, returned. Maponus was one of those. His links were possibly the strongest of all. There was a reason he, of all the Tuatha lle Danann, was seen as a saviour by mortals. And then, suddenly, he disappeared.'
The others waited for him to continue. 'What happened?' Church prompted.
'The Tuatha lle Danann would never speak of it,' he said hesitantly. 'In all my time in Otherworld it was the one question I dared not ask.' A shadow crossed his face. 'That's wrong. I did ask it once. But never again.' Church caught a glimpse of the same terrible expression Tom had worn when he had first told them about the suffering he underwent during the gods' ganger. 'The Tuatha lle Danann indulged me. I was an amusement, a curiosity, but certainly not an equal. They considered me so far beneath them they would never discuss something they considered important. And this, whatever it was, was obviously of vital importance.'
'If he disappeared, how the hell are we supposed to find him?' Veitch asked.
'When I returned to this world and was inducted into the secret knowledge of the land by the Culture…' He looked at them sharply as if he had given something away. '… the people of the Bone Inspector, I learned another strange story which perhaps shed a little light on it. One of the great old gods had been bound by the Culture in a place just south of Edinburgh, sealed in the earth for all time.'
'I don't fucking understand.' Witch's irritation was growing. 'If this geezer was so loved, why was he banged up?' He glared at Tom as if the hippie was personally setting out to confuse him.
'I never learned why. That information was kept by the highest adepts within the Culture. I never stayed with them long enough to rise that high.'
'The Culture… the people of the Bone Inspector… they seemed to have a lot of influence. Power,' Church noted.
Tom nodded. 'Supposedly eradicated by the Roman forces, they simply went underground, for centuries. But in the time when they bound the old god, they were at their strongest, worshipping in their groves, tending to the people, turning to face the sun at the solstice, standing proud, no longer stooped in hiding.'
Veitch drained his lager and tossed the bottle into the waste bin with a crash. 'I don't get it. I've seen these things in action. You can't just stand up and wave a sword at them.'
'At that time, the keepers of the knowledge had unprecedented control of the lifeblood of the Earth. They used the blue fire to shackle a god.'
'Then he is imprisoned still,' Shavi noted, 'waiting to be released?'
Tom merely looked out of the window towards the sun, closing his eyes when the light caught his face.
'Sounds a bit dodgy to me,' Veitch said suspiciously. 'He's not exactly going to be of a mind to help us after being underground all that time.'
'I thought you were the one prepared to risk anything for your lady-love?' Tom said curtly.
'Can we control him?' Church asked. 'How do we know the dead weren't lying to us, playing another of their games so we'd actually get into an even bigger mess? Like having an angry god giving us a good kicking for his unjust treatment.'
'We don't know.' Tom sighed. 'But it makes a queer kind of sense. If the Fomorii are preparing for the rebirth of Balor in their fortress beneath the castle, it will have been deemed impregnable. They will not risk losing their sole reason for existing. The Cailleach Bheur…' He swallowed hard; his mouth had grown unfeasibly dry. 'She is a power of nature, greater even than many of the powers you have already witnessed. Of all the gods, Maponus is possibly the only one who could hold her at bay, contain her so she didn't unleash the fimbul- winter. And if, at the same time, we could awaken the Well of Fire then the shadows might finally be turned back.'
'Alternatively, everything could go to hell in a handcart,' Church said acidly.
Tom shrugged. 'Did you expect easy choices?'
'No, but I don't expect you to be glib, either,' Church replied. He knew the decision would ultimately rest with him and he didn't feel up to making it. So much seemed to lie on every choice. He wished he could just return to the pathetic little life he had before.
'Do you know where Maponus is imprisoned?' Shavi asked.
'Not exactly. Not to the foot. But I know the place.' He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. 'A place called Rosslyn Chapel.'
'I have heard of it,' Shavi mused. 'A place of many mysteries. But it was founded many years after the time of which you speak.'
'And the Good Son was there long before the first stone of Rosslyn Chapel was laid. The building was devised as a resting place.'
'I remember now.' Shavi took the bottled water Veitch handed him from the mini-bar. 'The chapel is famous for its blend of Celtic, Christian and Masonic iconography in its structure. For a supposedly Christian place of worship there are pagan symbols everywhere, more representations of the Green Man than anywhere else in the land.'
'And The Green Man,' Church said, 'is another way of saying Cernunnos-'
'Cernunnos was an important element in the ritual of binding. He is, to be glib-' he glanced at Church '-the flip side of Maponus. The thick, dark forests to the sunlit plains. Winter to summer. Night to day.'
'His brother,' Church ventured.
'As if that term means anything to them.'
'I am impressed that the memory of Maponus survived the centuries strong enough to prompt the erection of such a magnificent, codified building,' Shavi said.
Tom nodded thoughfully. 'A good point. Of those few who held the knowledge, a separate group was established in perpetuity. The members were called, in our parlance, Watchmen. Their aim was not only to keep the knowledge of the old god's imprisonment, but that a line of civil defence would be established to prepare for any further incursions from Otherworld. They were of their own creed to begin with, but as the role was essentially spiritual, when Christianity began to become established, representatives were chosen from the new Church. And from all the other faiths that eventually set up roots in this land. Over time, each faith's Watchmen became almost separate entities, unaware of those groups formed by their rivals. But they all kept the same knowledge and the same mission.'
'It was one of the Watchmen who pointed us in the right direction at Glastonbury.' Shavi moistened his throat with the water. Some of the blood seemed to have returned to his features, much to Church's relief. 'And it was another group which built Rosslyn Chapel?'
Tom nodded. 'Under the direction of Sir William St. Clair, a prince of Orkney. In the increasingly Godless twentieth century most of the groups have withered. I have no idea if one still exists at Rosslyn-'
The faint knock at the door made him tense, as if he had heard a gun being cocked. Before anyone could speak, Veitch was already moving on perfectly balanced limbs until he was poised at the door jamb, ready to act. He looked to Church for guidance.
Church waited a moment then called out, 'Who's there?'
'Laura.' Her voice sounded like paper in the wind.
Veitch wrenched open the door and she almost collapsed in. Church moved forward quickly to catch her.
She looked into his face before her eyelids flickered and a faint smile spread across her lips. 'You know, I
