area.
The Bone Inspector swore profusely. 'Call yourself a leader of men?' He marched past Church and rammed his staff against a stone set into the wall on which the bridge's foundations were set. The ground fell away with a ghostly silence. 'After you,' he said sarcastically.
The tunnel was rough hewn, dripping with water that ran in rivulets along the edges. It was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, though the ceiling was high enough to accommodate the Fomorii bulk. It sloped down quickly into deep shadows. Tom lit a torch they had brought with them, as did one of the Tuatha De Danann.
Then, when they had all steeled themselves, Church and Tom led the way, with the Bone Inspector close behind and the rest coming up at a distance as if they were barely connected.
When the tension of entering enemy territory had ebbed a little, the thought that had been troubling Church the most rose to the surface. 'I've just been talking to Niamh,' he whispered to Tom. 'I got a hint she knows what's going to happen.'
'They all do.'
'I don't get it. How does that work? Even you, you're always talking darkly about what the future holds like you know it inside out.'
Tom said nothing, but Church wasn't prepared to let it lie. This was fundamental.
'If everything is set in stone,' he stressed to get a reaction, 'what's the point?'
'It isn't like that.'
'Then what is it like?'
Tom sighed. 'It is beyond your perception.'
'Then put it in simple terms. For a stupid old country boy.' Church thought about adding a few choice words, but decided it would be unproductive.
'Those who can see the future-although that's really not the right term for it-see it as a series of snapshots, not as a movie. Sometimes there is no context. Sometimes the photos are out of order. Reading meaning in them is a dangerous business. You recall, I described it once as catching glimpses from the window of a speeding car.'
'But it's still fixed.'
'Nothing is fixed. Anywhere.'
Church cursed quietly. 'Just give it to me straight, instead of packaged around your usual-'
'Everything can be changed by the will of a strong individual. One man. Or woman. There are no rules, not at the level the great thinkers of humanity examined, anyway. Only the illusion of rules. The future runs right on like a river, but it can be turned back by someone with the right heart and drive and state of mind. What the old storybooks laughingly call a hero. The Tuatha De Danann pretend they know everything that's going to happen and that has happened, pretend it even to themselves, but you can see from the way they've been acting in the last few hours that in their hearts they know the truth. What they perceive might not turn out to be the way it appears, or perhaps they have missed part of the equation. Or perhaps someone like you will come along. There is a reason for free will, jack.'
Church thought about this for several minutes. It gave him a deep feeling of comfort, although he couldn't quite tell why. 'Then you don't really know anything.'
Tom remained silent for a long, uncomfortable moment. 'That's not quite true. Some things are so weighed down by the monumental events around them that they might as well be set in stone.'
However much Church questioned him about this, he would say no more. But Tom's words had set other thoughts in motion. Barely daring to ask, he said firmly, 'Do you know who's going to betray us?'
Tom kept his eyes fixed firmly ahead.
'You do, don't you?' His anger rose quickly. After all the months of worry, Tom could have told them at any time. 'Why didn't you say something? You know it could mean everything might fall apart! You've got to tell me!'
'I can't.' Tom's face was unreadable.
'Even with the potential repercussions? Why not? Do you want to see us suffer?'
Tom rounded on him furiously. 'Of course not! I can't tell you because there's too much that might be changed.'
'How long have you known?'
'I've always known.'
'Always?'
'Always. And if you'd been paying attention, you would have known too.'
The words were like a slap to the face. In the space between seconds, a million memories flashed across his mind as he turned over everything he had seen and heard over the previous months. Had he missed something? Had he screwed up again? 'I guess I'll know soon enough,' he said with bitter resignation. 'I just hope you can live with yourself when it comes out.'
The tunnel followed an undulating path, the changes in the air pressure telling Church it regularly ran under the river. He had taken to holding the Wayfinder permanently aloft so the walls were painted with a sapphire wash. The tiny blue flame gave him a measure of encouragement in that dark place, and raised the spirits of Tom and the Bone Inspector too. The flame pointed dead ahead.
'Why didn't it lead us to the head before?' Church asked.
'Because it is responding to what you hold in your heart,' Tom replied.
'It's alive?'
'As much as anything can be said to be alive, yes.'
When they'd been walking an hour or more, the Wayfinder flame began to grow brighter. At the same time, the unnerving background beat became rapidly louder. Within ten minutes it was coming through the walls all around-BADOOM, BA-DOOM-a war drum marking their passage to disaster.
Two and a half hours later, the tunnel rose up, while at the same time becoming more formed, with props and stone lining the walls. The Wayfinder's flame had started to point away from the main route of the tunnel so that when they came to a large oaken door Church was prepared for it.
'Looks like we're here,' he said. The door was locked, but Caledfwlch sliced through the rusty iron mechanism easily. Church looked around at the others. Tom and the Bone Inspector were grim faced, the Tuatha De Danann impassive, Niamh concerned and colourless; they all nodded.
He yanked open the door.
It felt like they had walked into a foundry. After the chill of the tunnel, the heat was stifling, the air suffused with the smell of acrid smoke that caught the back of their throats. The thunder of Balor's heart was almost deafening.
The stone walls and flagged floor suggested they were somewhere in the lowest level of the Tower of London. The Bone Inspector breathed deeply, despite the atmosphere. 'Can you feel it? Ancient power, even though those bastards have tried to pervert it. I haven't been here for years-too many people. Should have come back sooner.' He looked at Church. 'This place was sacred long before they threw up this mountain of stone over the top of it. If any place can be called the heart of the country, it's here.'
The Tuatha De Danann set the chest containing the Wish-Hex down in the middle of the room. 'What is in that box?' Church said mockingly. Nuada's lieutenant didn't reply, didn't even acknowledge he had spoken. Church caught Niamh's eye as he turned back to the others and she gave him a secret nod. 'We need to move quickly,' he continued. 'They might already know we're here-'
'The Wayfinder will blind Balor's perception to you, at least for a while,' Tom said. 'And if you hadn't brought the energy flow back to life at St. Michael's Mount you wouldn't be here at all.'
Church made to follow the lantern's flame until he saw the Tuatha De Danann were not moving. 'We shall wait here,' Nuada's lieutenant said.
'I'd say we've got even less time than we thought,' Church said under his breath to Tom and the Bone Inspector as they left the room.
The seething heat had them all red-faced and soaked in sweat before they had got very far along the maze of once-dank corridors. Church had visited the Tower before and had never seen any sign of that area, so he guessed it must lie beneath the zone normally open to the tourists. He had the Sword at the ready, but the entire lower level was deserted.
