perspective, of being part of something enormous, that crossed the boundaries of time and space, life and death. From that vista, everything dragging him down was meaningless. The true meaning was all around.
He wanted to communicate this enlightenment to Tom, but when he opened his eyes again all he saw was blue. It wasn't a flat colour, more like a diffuse light, a glow, a liquid, warm and enriching, but he wasn't drowning or choking. Out of curiosity he tried to call Tom's name, but either his vocal chords wouldn't respond or sound wouldn't travel in that medium.
Where was he? he thought without any panic. Floating… drifting… happy… content…
There wasn't any sense of real motion. It reminded him of lying in the sun in the back garden as a teenager, floating in a ring at the lido on a Saturday afternoon. Cocooning. No need to worry about anything at all, ever again. In fact, all negativity had been thoroughly expunged from his thoughts; he couldn't think of anything unpleasant even if he tried. He found himself dwelling on the truly good things in his life: the moment he first saw the mermaid swimming next to the boat on the way to Caldey Island, his friends, particularly Church, his role model whom he admired more than anything; and then Ruth, whom he loved in a way he had never thought possible, so acute it was almost physically painful not to be with her.
And that thought did trigger something unpleasant in his head, just the faint tremor in the deepest reaches, but it was there. What was it? Why wouldn't it go away and let him enjoy the experience of floating?
What was it?
Something… something about Tom. No, something Tom had said. His head was stuffed with candy floss, in consistency and sweetness; dredging up any kind of rational thought progress was a struggle. Ruth. Tom. Ruth.
And then he had it. Tom had warned him of the dangers of getting lost in the blue fire, of its seductive qualities that would make him not want to return to the real world. It was seductive, but if he didn't go back he would never see Ruth again; all the joys of the Blue Fire paled next to that.
The thought that he might already be trapped brought a bubble of panic, but the moment it surfaced he was moving. The blue sheen in front of his eyes still looked the same, but he could feel motion; he was shifting, faster and faster, until he felt he was speeding at a hundred miles an hour.
Before he could consider any further action, he sensed a presence beside him, Tom, although he could see nothing but blue when he looked around. More, he could sense his companion's mind, and what he saw there left him with a potent, bittersweet sensation. Laid bare was Tom's affection for all the travelling companions, which was both a shock, and humbling. But lying behind it all was a powerful self-loathing triggered by Tom's fear of what the Tuatha De Danann had truly done to him. He felt like an outsider, filled with a loneliness Veitch could not even begin to imagine; the only thing that gave his life meaning was the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons and the success of their mission.
Then he was moving again, only this time Tom was directing him. Soon he was whizzing faster even than he had before. A burst like TV interference crackled across his mind; another; and another; and then he was overcome with a monumental anticipation.
Another burst of static, and images began to flash across his mind so fast he could barely keep track. Some, though, were important enough to stick: Ruth, standing on the deck of a storm-tossed ship as black tentacles lashed through the air; Church, standing at a pool as the grim spectre of a woman rose out of the waters; Church and Ruth, sitting close beside each other on a cabin bed; the vampiric Baobhan Sith, grey and merciless, rising from the dusty ground; Laura, sitting in a damp warehouse, her skin an odd tinge of green, and a figure with white, papery skin scarred with inky-black veins looming over Church.
The images and the pure blue of the energy vanished with the feeling of passing through a membranous wall. For a brief moment an unending whiteness filled both his vision and his thoughts, and then he was thrust roughly into sensation: the wind and sun on his skin, the sight of trees and sky, the smell of fresh vegetation, made all the more powerful by their brief absence. It was followed by the realisation that he was several feet above the ground. He had no chance to prepare himself-he hit hard, winding himself. There was a crunch a split second later as Tom landed beside him.
'Can't you do anything about re-entry?' Veitch sat up, irritatedly rubbing his bruised ribs. His annoyance was less to do with the pain of the landing than the fading memories of his overwhelmingly joyous experience in the Blue Fire; it had left him hollow and dissolute. He controlled his rumbling temper when he saw Tom was undergoing the same separation pangs.
The Rhymer struggled to his feet, obviously in some discomfort, plucking his spectacles from a bush where they had landed in the fall. They were on a gently sloping hillside in the deep shadow cast by heavy tree cover, although the sun burned brightly on a grassy path cutting through the wood nearby. There, the last Brimstone butterflies of summer fluttered amongst the burdock flowers. Bees buzzed lazily round the boles while midges danced in a sunbeam. The chattering of birds was everywhere. The air smelled dank and peaty from the leaf mould that covered the wood floor, obscured in areas by patches of bramble and nettles and the occasional pile of coppiced wood.
'I saw things. Just before we got here.' Some of the images lay heavily on Witch's mind, pregnant with meaning he couldn't discern. 'Church. And Ruth…'
'I noticed that the last time.' Tom grumpily checked his faded haversack to ensure nothing had fallen out. 'When you are about to exit the energy stream you pass through an area where you can see through time and space. Neither of those things are fixed anyway, except in your limited perceptions.'
Veitch checked his watch. Barely a second had passed since they had been in the cairn at Corrimony.
'You were right.' He stood up to see if he could discern their next direction. 'That was some smart bleedin' place. It was-'
'Heavenly.'
'Right. I didn't want to leave. But you know what? It didn't feel like that before when we went from Cornwall to Glastonbury.'
'Then you were panicking in the sea, blacking out, trapped in the mundane so you couldn't perceive the ultimate.' Tom readjusted his ponytail, then strode up the slope.
'You know where we're going?'
'Yes, out of the trees so I can get my bearings.'
Tom had retreated into his usual state of ill-tempered reticence, but Veitch wanted to talk about the many confusing thoughts the experience had engendered. 'That was amazing,' he said quietly as they walked.
'And dangerous.'
'You know what? I don't think it is. I reckon I've got it figured out.'
'My. Aren't you the smart one?'
'It's only really dangerous if you've given up on living.'
This struck Tom sharply. 'What do you mean?'
'You're all right as long as you've got something to hold on to in the real world. If you haven't got anything here, you give up, float away. If you have unfinished business, something important, you drag yourself back. You don't really mind leaving 'cause you know that sooner or later you're going to end up back there. You can wait.'
Tom thought about this for a long moment. 'And you had something to bring you back?'
'That's right. I've got stuff still to do here. But when it's all over, you know, when my number's up, I wouldn't mind going back there. Just knowing it's there changes the way you look at life, y'know?'
'Yes. I know.'
They emerged on the sunlit path and followed it up to a tarmac-covered route where an information board showed a tourist map of Wandlebury Camp.
'We made it, then. We could have ended up anywhere in that stuff, but we came to exactly the right place. We thought ourselves here, didn't we?'
Tom read the sign's notes on the historical background to the camp, then estimated their position from the noon sun. He pointed back down the slope. 'That way, but later. First we need to see if Shavi's body is here.'
Veitch shifted uncomfortably. 'What if something's got at him? Some animal?'
'Do you really think Cernunnos would allow that to happen?'
He set out along the path that curled around the eastern side of the low hill. A thick bank of trees obscured the top. The path drew tightly past a small nature reserve settled on a pond that was thick with rushes where
