glow around the perimeter, but he instinctively felt the correct path was directly across the floor of the cavern, through the darkness that could hide treacherous fissures, sinkholes and pits. His fears were confirmed when he glanced down and noticed a carved rock set in the floor by his feet. It was well-made, polished and indented. It showed a dragon, its tail curling to form an arrowhead which pointed the way into the centre of the cavern. He hesitated for just a moment, then strode off into the shadows.
It seemed like he had been walking for hours, although he guessed it was only about fifteen minutes. In the enveloping dark the going was laboriously slow, feeling with each foot before taking another step. At times the visual deprivation was so hallucinatory he felt his head spinning and he had to fight to stop himself from pitching to the ground; in that warped atmosphere he was having trouble discerning what was happening in his head and what was external.
Without eyes, sound took on added meaning and he was alert to any aural change in his surroundings. When he first heard the distant, reverberating chingching-ching of metal on metal he froze instantly.
Listening intently, he held his breath as the noise grew louder until it was accompanied by the trudge of heavy footsteps. A faint light began to draw closer, which he at first thought was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Gradually, though, an enormous figure presented itself to him, but it seemed unreal, like an obvious movie effect, with the light buried deep within it and seeping out through its surface. As it came into focus he felt a sudden pang of fear. From the sickening waves that rolled off it, it was undoubtedly a Fomor, but it was encased in black, shiny armour; the chainmail that glinted darkly beneath the plates was making the metallic sound that had alerted him to its presence. The oddly shaped armour with its gnarls and ridges was like a carapace, making the figure resemble a giant insect; on the head was a helmet which concealed most of the hideous face, two curved horns reaching out from the temple with a row of six smaller ones beneath. It was gripping in both hands an unusual but cruel weapon with on one side a nicked and sickly smeared axe-head and on the other a line of sharp tines of irregular length. Church heard its breath rumbling like a traction engine, the vibrations churning in the pit of his stomach.
The figure was terrifying to see. Church had the sense it was more powerful than any of the Fomorii he had encountered before. And as it advanced, the threat around it grew until he felt queasy from the potency of the danger.
His shock at what he was witnessing finally broke and he took a couple of staggering backwards steps before turning and running. He hadn't gone far when he stumbled over an outcropping rock and crashed down, winding himself. But as he glanced back to see how close the Fomor warrior was behind him, he saw the figure begin to break up into tiny particles, as if it were made out of flies. There was no sound, and a second later it had completely disappeared.
Church rolled on to his back, breathing heavily, trying to make sense of what had happened. He had felt the Fomor was definitely there, yet it didn't seem to have been aware of him. Was it simply a hallucination or a by- product of the strange atmosphere that existed in that place?
As he climbed to his feet a more important concern pushed all those questions from his mind. In his attempt to get away he had done just as he had feared-lost his sense of direction. It was impossible to tell where he had been going. There was nothing for it. Despondently, he selected a path at random and set off.
The mesmerising darkness became claustrophobic. He was flying, he was falling. He was hearing voices singing from the void, fading, rising again in anger or despair. There was Marianne, his Marianne, saying, 'So the real Dale is still in the Black Lodge?' He scrubbed at his ears and it went away.
To his right he saw a dim golden glow pulsating with the beat of the blood in his brain. As he drew near, figures separated from the light, all shining, all beautiful. He recognised faces he had seen when the Tuatha De Danann had swept to his rescue at the Fairy Bridge on Skye. Lugh stood, tall and proud, reunited with his spear, which he held at his side. And behind him was the Dagda, a starburst from which features coalesced, alternately ferocious and paternal, always different; his own father appeared there briefly. And there were others who seemed both benign and cruel at the same time; some were so alien to his vision it made his stomach churn. They were talking, but their communication was so high-pitched and incomprehensible it might as well have been the language of angels.
He almost stumbled among them, but they were oblivious to his presence. He had the sudden urge to lash out, a childish desire born of his own powerlessness, but he knew it would be futile, and so restrained himself, if he admitted it to himself, there was some fear there too.
But were they hallucinations? Or was the potent energy drawing him towards real moments plucked from the flow of time? As if to answer his unspoken question, Lugh pointed to an image which coalesced among them. It was Veitch, obvious despite the mask that covered his face, clutching a shotgun, his nervousness masked by anger. Church knew instantly what he was seeing: the moment when his friend had his life torn from him. Veitch waved the gun back and forth. In the background the building society was still, tense.
One of the Tuatha De Danann Church didn't recognise leaned forward and said something in the angel- tongue. On cue, Veitch whirled and fired the gun. An elderly man was thrown back as if he'd been hit by a car, trailing droplets of blood through the air.
Ruth's uncle, Church thought. The act that brought on her father's heart attack. Two lives ruined by the arrogance of power.
He watched the faces of the Tuatha De Danann expecting, hoping almost, to see cruel glee or contempt there, but there was nothing. It was an act inflicted on beings so far beneath them that there was no call for any response; it was nothing more than a brushing away of a dust mote.
Sickened, he turned and hurried away.
He hadn't gone far when an idea struck him. If what he was viewing was random, such a turning point in all their lives would have been too much of a coincidence. In some way the events were arriving before him like lightning leaping to the rod on a church steeple, summoned by his subconscious, or some other vital part of his being.
Maybe we're operating on the quantum level, he thought, where everything is linked. But if that was true, what did the first terrifying image mean? Maybe I can make this work for me.
He concentrated until he dredged up images from his subconscious, some so painful they brought tears to his eyes. He remembered how Tom had used the blue fire to warp space before, drawing them along lines of power from the stormy sea off Tintagel to the top of Glastonbury Tor in the wink of an eye.
Do it for me now, he wished, feeling like a boy, not caring.
For long moments nothing happened. And then, suddenly, he was falling. When the descent stopped he was standing in his old flat. But it didn't have the familiar look of bachelorhood, the secret layers of dust, the scatter of magazines, piles of videos and CDs, and odours that wouldn't shift. It was before. When Marianne lived there.
His heart leapt, but that was just the start of a complex flood of emotions that overwhelmed him. He breathed in deeply. He could smell her! That brought a fugitive tear, which he hastily rubbed away.
Stay focused. This is where you find the truth, he thought. If you can bear it. If you can feel your heart ripped out, see things that will scar your mind for the rest of your life.
He wished he could let it go, move on, but Marianne's death had destroyed him and not even a saint could turn the other cheek to that. Here was something he could believe in: revenge. Cold and hard.
The flat appeared empty. One of her acid jazz CDs played innocuously in the background. And then he could hear her moving around, humming to the music, at peace with herself and the life they had.
Don't cry, he told himself futilely.
He remembered where he had been at that moment: in the pub two streets away, drunk on booze, drunk on life, singing old Pogues songs with Dale and thinking what it would be like to be married.
Don't cry, he told himself futilely.
He wiped his face, forced himself to stay calm in the centre of a room a lifetime away, when he had been whole; listened intently. Soon. Soon.
Marianne singing now, in perfect harmony with the track. Leaving the kitchen where she had been washing up. Crossing to the bathroom. He strained to see, then averted his eyes at the last moment. Then regretted it a second later.
The bathroom cabinet opening. She was taking out something. Bath oil? No taps yet. There had been no water in the bath.
There it was: the bare, brief click of the door. Nausea clutched his stomach.
'Church? Is that you?' Her voice; he couldn't bear it.
