despair, because they were missing out on all the great things life had to offer: you know, fun and friendship and love and all that.'
Ruth brushed a strand of hair from her face. Oddly, she felt closest to him during his brooding moments, when all his attention was turned inward; a usually hidden fragility was revealed that made her want to protect him. 'Some people have to give up their lives so everyone else can enjoy theirs. I'm sure it's tough for the person in question, but that seems to be the way it works. Anyway, you know what Tom and Shavi would say-we can't ever see the big picture, so it's a waste of time for us trying to put something like that into perspective. Perhaps the reward is in the next world.'
'This is the next world,' Church said dismally.
'You know what I mean. There's always something higher.'
'Well, I want my life back when all this is over. I don't think that's too much to ask. I'll have met my obligations, done everything expected of me. I don't want to die an old man, still fighting this stupid, nightmarish battle.'
'Hmm, considering old age-that's optimistic of you. Me, I'm happy if I make it through to tomorrow.'
The water exploded upwards in a spout, followed by thrashing tentacles and the glinting of teeth. The fisherman struck hard with his spear, his face as calm as if he were lazing on the banks of a river, and then he struck again several times in rapid succession. A gush of black liquid soured the water. One of the tentacles lashed around his calf, and when it retracted, the flesh was scoured. More tentacles shot up, folding around his legs like steel cables. Church gripped the railing. It was obvious the fisherman was going to be dragged off the seat, yet none of the other gods who hung over the rail above him were in the slightest concerned.
'Dog eat dog.' The words at his left ear made him start. Standing just behind him was Taranis, Manannan's right-hand man, who oversaw the mysterious star charts by which the crew navigated. The face Church had chosen for him had a faint touch of cruelty, thin and sharp, with piercing eyes and a tightly clipped goatee. His presence made Church feel queasy. 'Fish eat fish,' he continued, by way of explanation for the scene they were observing. 'Bird eat worm, cat eat mouse, wolf eat rabbit.'
Church returned his attention to the fisherman and the crazed splashing that surrounded him. He was on the verge of slipping beneath the waves, clutching on to the seat with one hand while hacking mercilessly with the spear with the other. At the point when Church thought he would have to go, the spear bit into some vital point and he managed to wriggle his legs free and lever himself back up on to the seat. A few more choice hacks and an indescribable black bulk bobbed to the surface where it floated, motionless.
'Dinner?' Ruth asked distastefully.
Taranis gave a thin-lipped smile at the outcome. 'The way of existence,' he said.
'I'm heading back to my cabin for a bit,' Ruth said, before turning to Taranis. She motioned to the collapsible telescope made of ivory and inlaid sable and gold that hung from his belt. 'May I borrow this for a while?'
Taranis seemed taken aback by her request, and Church, too, was surprised by her forwardness, but the god acceded with a curt nod. Ruth weighed it in her palms, nodded thoughtfully, and headed towards the door that led beneath the deck.
Without Ruth to talk to, and with Niamh distracted, Church felt out of sorts. The other occupants of the ship made his skin crawl, even the ones that most closely resembled humans. There was nothing to see across the water, nothing to do in his cabin, little anywhere to occupy his time. He was reminded of Samuel Johnson's quotation: Going to sea is going to prison, with a chance of drowning besides.
As he made his way along the corridor towards his cabin, his nose wrinkled at an incongruous, sulphurous odour; it was powerful enough to sting his eyes and make the back of his throat burn. It appeared to be emanating from a branching corridor he had never seen before. In the back of his head an insistent alarm was warning him not to venture down it, but if there were a fire on board the alarm would need to be raised. He vacillated for the briefest moment before turning down the offshoot.
The corridor followed a serpentine route that made no sense, even doubling back on itself before ending at a double arched door made from seasoned wood. The handles were big enough to take two hands, made from blackened cast-iron. From behind it he could hear a thunderous pounding. The sulphurous stink was so potent now it almost made him choke.
Cautiously, he opened the door.
The room was stiflingly hot and the acrid smell hung heavily all around. His ears rebelled from the constant clashing of metal on metal, his teeth rang from the reverberations. It was almost impossible to tell the dimensions of the room, for it was as dark as night, with occasional pockets of brilliant light, ruddy and orange, or showering in golden stars. It was a foundry. On board a ship. Nothing in that vessel made sense at all.
The dull glow came from three separate furnaces. The sound of the bellows keeping them incandescent was like the turbulent breathing of a giant. He covered his mouth to keep out the fumes and prepared to back out, until his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he realised he was not alone. Three huge figures worked insistently, pounding glowing shards of metal on anvils as big as a Shetland pony, plunging the worked piece into troughs of water, raising clouds of steam, moving hastily back to thrust tools into the red-hot coals.
Transfixed, he found himself trying to guess what strange implements were being constructed. He was woken from his concentration by a voice that sounded like the roar of another furnace. 'Draw closer, Fragile Creature.'
His heart thumped in shock, but it was too late to retreat. He moved forward until the glow from the furnace illuminated the shadowy form. It took a while for the figure to stabilise, marking out his position in the hierarchy of the Tuatha De Danann. Though none of it was real, Church smelled the stink of sweat, heavy with potent male hormones. The blacksmith had a rough-hewn face, marked with black stubble and framed by sweaty, lank black hair. He was naked to the waist, his torso and arms rippling with the biggest muscles Church had ever seen. His body gleamed, with sweat running in rivulets down to a wide golden belt girding his waist. In one hand he held a hammer as big as Church's upper body, poised midstrike; in the other he clutched a pair of tongs that gripped a glowing chunk of iron flattened on one edge. Without taking his eyes off Church, he lowered the iron into the trough at his side and was instantly obscured by the steam.
When it had cleared, he said gruffly, 'We get few visitors here, in the workshop of the world.'
'I smelled the furnace. Thought there was a fire.'
The blacksmith's eyes narrowed. 'Are you the Brother of Dragons I have been hearing about?' Church introduced himself. The blacksmith gave a nod, his movements slow and heavy. 'The cry goes out across the worlds, in death and black destruction, the child answers, full of fury, yet finds no absolution.'
'What's that?'
'A memory.' With a clatter, he dumped the tongs and the piece of iron on a workbench. 'In the times when my workshop armed your world, your people called me Goibhniu, known too, as Govannon.' He leaned forward and showed Church a ragged scar across his side. 'See my wound.' Church wondered why the god didn't lay down his hammer, but when he peered at it closely the edges of it rippled. Church couldn't tell if it were the heat haze from the furnace or if it were Goibhniu's Caraprix in the form that would help him the most. The god saw Church eyeing the tool and held it out before him. 'Three strikes make perfection. I can work the stuff of existence, shape worlds or insects. With these hands, anything can be made in a single day, and anything can be destroyed.'
Beyond him, in the shadows, Church could make out a tremendous armoury: swords and spears, things that looked like tanks in the form of beetles, and also enormous machines that served no purpose he could recognise.
'And weapons?' Church asked.
'Weapons from which none can recover. Weapons that can destroy the whole of existence.'
The words caught in Church's mind. 'Weapons that could destroy Balor?'
Goibhniu surveyed him for a long moment, then motioned towards the other figures, who had not paused in their work. 'My brothers, as your people knew them: Creidhne and Luchtaine, known as Luchtar, who works wood and metal, as well as the stuff of everything.'
Luchtaine had paused from his work at the anvil to shape an unusual piece of wood on a lathe that whirred like a bug. Creidhne was fashioning what appeared to be rivets made of gold. They both looked at Church with eyes filled with flame and smoke.
'Why are you here, on board this ship?' Church felt uneasy, as if he was missing something important and terrible in the scene.
