His skin prickled. Inside the room he felt an unpleasant coldness that was the antithesis of that spirit energy. He didn't know why he had asked Baccharus to take him there while Ruth rested-or hid-in her cabin, but the urge had been insistent. He pushed his palm forward and the door swung open at his touch.
The chamber was in complete darkness. It smelled of some zoo cage littered with dirty straw, reminding him uncomfortably of his imprisonment in the mine deep beneath Dartmoor. He couldn't help but think a cruelty was being inflicted, despite everything his rational mind told him of deserving punishment.
Baccharus stepped past him holding one of the torches from the corridor and lit an extinct one fixed to the wall close to the door. Unlike the torches without, it cast only a dull, ruddy glare, barely causing the shadows to retreat. Baccharus nodded to him curtly, then stepped out and closed the door behind him.
'So you've found it in your heart to visit another soldier of the road, now sadly down on his luck.' The voice was infused with scorn.
At the far end of the room was an iron cage, barely large enough for a man to stretch out in. Straw was indeed scattered on the floor within, along with what resembled an animal's feeding trough. Callow squatted at the back of it, his peeled white eyes staring like sickly lamps. There was something about that unflinching gaze that made Church's stomach squirm: human yet not human. The parchment skin was a muddy red in the flickering glow of the torch, but the black veins still stood out starkly, a roadmap of hell.
'Don't get smart with me. You've brought everything on yourself.'
'Well, that's a fine attitude for such a noble man to take. Filled with Christian values. Do I hear the sweet tinkling notes of forgiveness? The vibrato of salvation? The teasing choir of redemption? Or perhaps we truly are brothers of the byway. When the ditch is your billet, you see life with a different perspective, is that not true? Not so noble then, is it? Means to an end is the phrase on every good man's lips.'
'Shut up, Callow. I haven't got the energy.' Church eyed the heavy padlocks on the cage door. The Tuatha De Danann were taking no chances with him. Perhaps he should be more cautious.
'And how is the lovely Miz Gallagher?' Callow began oleaginously.
Church's glare stopped him dead; it left Callow in no doubt that here was a topic where he could never trespass. Callow scrabbled around in the straw for a distraction like he was looking for a stray piece of corn from his meal; a chicken waiting to be harvested. But then he looked up with a cold confidence and said, 'Things have turned a little sour, have they not?' His thin lips peeled back from his blackened teeth in a sly smirk.
He knows why I've come, Church thought.
Callow's eyes were a vortex in the gloom. 'You're here to beg for my help. Oh, Glory be! My time has truly come!'
'Your time has long gone, Callow. But you might still be able to rescue a thin chance of saving yourself if you start acting like you don't want to see the whole of humanity eradicated.'
'Look after number one, my boy. You know that well.'
The jibe hurt Church even though he had managed to put his own selfish interests to one side. 'This is a new age, didn't you know? These days we look after each other.' Callow looked away. 'I may be wasting my time here in more ways than one,' Church continued, 'but I have to ignore my personal feelings if there's a chance everyone might benefit. And make no mistake, Callow, I loathe you. For what you did to Laura, and Ruth. For turning your back on the human race simply to achieve your own ends. You truly are a grotesque person. But it's still wrong the way the Tuatha De Danann are treating you like some animal.'
'We are all animals to them.'
'I know. They use us for their own ends, but this time we're using them.' Church felt uncomfortable trying to play Callow. A streak of madness that ran through him made him impossible to predict; Church still didn't really know what the Fomorii had done to him inside. 'I've got a feeling you know something that might help us. Where the Fomorii main nest is, where Balor is hidden, building up his strength. Some weakness-'
'Oh, you really are a prime example of hope over reality,' Callow snapped bitterly. 'I should give up my hard- won knowledge? For what? A chance to be seen as good?' He waggled his fingers to show the gap where he had sliced the one off himself. 'You forget, my little pet, the only reason I would want to take your hand is to harvest your digits.'
'So you don't know anything, then.' Church made to go.
'I know a great many things that would shock and surprise you,' Callow replied sharply, stung by the dismissal. 'I know what makes your eyes light up. And where the Luck of the Land lies. And I know what happened on this Ship of Fools last night.'
'How?'
'I can hear things through the walls. Through many walls.'
'I know what happened last night. That's not important to me-'
'You would think, wouldn't you?' Callow smirked again; Church couldn't tell if it was more petty tormenting or if he truly did know something of import. 'Now be off with you, and leave me to my peace and quiet,' Callow snapped, 'and don't return unless you have the key to release me from this foul den.'
When he reached the door, Callow called out to him again, 'Are you missing your friends? Do you feel lost without them? Too weak and inexperienced? What is it like to know they are all dead, dead, dead…
Church stepped out and slammed the door hard so he wouldn't have to hear any more.
The first thought was like a candle in a room that had remained dark for an age. It flickered, dangerously close to extinction, but then caught. Slowly, the heat and the light returned.
For Laura, memories pieced together gradually and chaotically, sparing her the full horror of revelation in one devastating blow. Making love to Church. The joy she felt at finally finding someone to whom she could open up the dark chambers of her soul. Making love to Shavi, a friend who defied any insipid meaning she had given to the word in the past. Her hated mother, her pathetic father. Her friends. Her work: computer screens and mobile phones. One image returning in force: trees. The things she had fought for so many times with her environmental activism.
They gathered pace, memories clinging together, forming patterns in the chaos. The quest. The Quincunx, the five who are one. Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Talismans and Blue Fire. Standing stones and old religion. Tuatha De Danann and Fomorii. And Balor.
And Balor.
Electricity jolted her body into convulsions. She recalled with crystal clarity the night on Mam Tor when she had taken the potion from Cernunnos and made the sacrifice that would end her life; for Ruth, for everyone. When she took Balor into her own body.
Another shock, dragging her from the recesses of her head. How could she still be alive, thinking? When Balor emerged from her it would have rended her body apart.
Gradually details of her surroundings broke through her confusion. She was lying on her back in a dark place; as her eyes adjusted she realised there was a thin light source filtering in from somewhere. The air was thick with the stench of decomposition. She choked, gagged, tried to breathe in small gasps that went straight to the back of her throat. She made the mistake of turning her head and looked into a pair of glassy eyes only inches from her. It was a woman, not much older than her. Beyond she could just make out irregular shapes heaped all around. They resembled bags of discarded clothing.
Closing her eyes, she took refuge once more in her head, but even there no safety lay. Her body was racked with pain. Slowly she let her hands move down her torso towards her belly, dreading the end of their journey. They were halted by sharpness and void almost before they had started.
Initially she couldn't work out what she was feeling, and then when she did, she refused to believe it. But there was no doubt. Her ribs were protruding on both sides like jagged teeth around the hollow from which Balor had erupted.
It couldn't be. She was dead. Dead and dreaming. Her arms collapsed to her side and her thoughts fragmented once more.
The next time she was aware, she let her hands investigate once more, praying it had been a hallucination. And this time there were no broken ribs and gaping wound, although her clothes around that area were shredded.
Her relief left her sobbing silently for several minutes.
Finally she found the strength to lever herself up on her elbows. From the air currents she could tell she was in some cavernous room, the ceiling and walls lost to the shadows. All around were corpses, piled in rolling dunes.
