'You know you're not supposed to drink it neat,' Tom said, with a little too much contempt. 'You mix it with water, a spoon of caramelised sugar. They say you'd have to have half a brain to take it without watering it down.'
Veitch grinned, waving the bottle in front of Tom's face before taking another slug.
Tom gave him a sour stare. 'It's got hallucinogenic properties, you know. The active ingredient from cannabis.'
'Oh yes… you're right.' Veitch pretended to waver. 'I can see things! It's amazing! You look… almost human!'
Tom snorted and waved him away.
Veitch let his chuckles die away before rubbing his hand thoughtfully over his three-day stubble. He looked over at Shavi curiously.
'What?'
'How you doin'?'
Shavi gave a questioning shrug.
'You died, or nearest thing to it. That must have done your head in. How do you come back from something like that?'
'So you do care.'
'Just checking you're not going to go psycho with an axe in the middle of the night.' His smile gave the lie to his words. He threw another log on the fire; it cracked and spattered, sending sparks shooting up with the smoke.
'I actually feel better than I did before I died.' Shavi pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders, his breath white. Winter was not far away. 'You may find that hard to believe. But I have made my peace with Lee. I have seen the other side of death and returned to talk about it. I have been reborn, bright and new in the world. It was a redemptive experience, highly spiritual, uplifting.'
'Yeah, but can you still get a stiffy?' Veitch leaned back against his rucksack, laughing drunkenly.
'Don't be talking to him,' Tom said sternly. 'You won't be getting any sense out of him tonight.'
'You are implying I get sense out of him at any time.' Shavi didn't see the boot coming; it hit him on the side of the head.
'Yessss! One-nil!'
They had embarked on a meandering route west after leaving Wandlebury Camp, careful to keep a good distance from London. The darkness in the south was growing with each hour, like night eating the day. The cinders in the breeze were more pronounced, and there was an overall sense of despair hanging in the increasingly cold wind. The world was winding down.
With Samhain approaching rapidly, a deep anxiety had gripped them, amplified by the certain knowledge that there was nothing they could do alone. They needed Church to succeed in his mission. They needed Ruth and Laura too. Sometimes it was almost too hard to hope, and that was when the depression set in.
But their abiding friendship, forged through hard times, kept them going and ensured the evenings around the campfire were filled with light talk and humour, lifting spirits dampened by the day's sights of deserted villages, frightened people hiding in their homes, or children and old people begging for food.
It wasn't as if they had any plan except to find Church and Ruth and Laura. That lack of direction left Veitch feeling strained and irritable. He was not a person who coped well with inactivity, particularly with time running out, when there was so much that needed to be done.
Shavi, however, guessed Tom knew more than he was saying.
'Do you think we'll find them?' Shavi said, breaking the rule of keeping the conversation light. Next to him, Veitch snored loudly in a drunken sleep.
'I think there is always hope.' Tom enjoyed a joint as he stared into the fire.
'But you are True Thomas. You can see the future. You must know something.'
'I try not to look. What will be, will be.'
Perhaps it was the drugs or the drink affecting him, but for the first time Tom's cool exterior was not impervious. Shavi caught a glimpse in the Rhymer's face of all the things Tom was not saying, and he was uncomfortable with what he saw.
'What if you really did see everything?' Shavi suggested. 'What if you knew exactly what was going to happen, bar a few minor hiccups here and there. What if you knew who lived and who died?'
Tom raised his head sharply to fix a stare that was so cold Shavi felt a chill in his bones. 'Then,' Tom said, 'my life would be damned.'
At the heart of the Court of High Regard stood an enormous tree with a trunk as far around as an office block and a top lost high overhead. All around it spread an area of distortion that left Church continually disoriented; buildings were never quite the same each time he looked at them. Some were substantially altered, one moment a sweeping dome like St. Paul's, the next a thrusting tower of Middle Eastern design. At times Church would glimpse rapid movement from the corner of his eye, the hint of crystal birds flapping across the sky, but when he looked there was nothing. People came and went as they crossed a piazza, or appeared in a haze on a corner, while the dead appeared to be everywhere, dazed, beatific, unthreatening.
'This is where our heart beats, the closest to the fabled home of our deepest memory.' Niamh's voice trembled with awe. Church was struck by how young and girlish she appeared, not alien at all. Now Baccharus had explained the distinction amongst the Tuatha De Danann, Church was amazed he hadn't seen it before. It was as simple as those who felt and those who didn't.
'Have you always been like this?'
She looked at him curiously with her large, innocent eyes. 'No,' she said after a moment's thought, 'once I was a true daughter of the Golden Ones, one of the confirmed rulers of all existence, above all else.'
'Then why did you change? When you hold such a position, it must take something phenomenal to turn you around.'
'I was taught, over what your people would consider a long period of time.'
'Who taught you?'
She smiled a little sadly, but did not answer.
They continued their tour in silence for a while, until Church broke the restrained mood by asking about the enormous tree.
'It is the World-Tree,' Niamh said, looking up into the distant branches. 'It is at the heart of all worlds. Its roots go down, its branches reach up.'
'Linking Heaven and Earth. This is an amazing place.' And it was. Wonder brought every nerve alive, just breathing air, looking round at the fluid scenery. It was filled with magic, the thing his life had always lacked.
'Once the Fixed Lands had the same power. Everything was alive, constantly changing. But your brethren stopped believing, or believed in the wrong things. You wished your world to be something lesser.'
Church examined a fountain where the water turned into tiny diamonds. 'I keep hearing that phrase, about wishing the world a certain way.'
'Nothing is truly fixed. The Fixed Lands are only such because they are sleeping. All is illusion, and all illusion is fluid. Belief is a powerful tool. Creatures great and small-life-is at the centre of everything, and they can shape things as they see fit. Nothing has to be accepted.'
'If you just wish hard enough,' he mused. 'I was never happy with how things were in my world. There was always something lacking. And it was get ting worse. The people I didn't like, the ones interested in money over everything, and personal power, they seemed to be driving things their way. It wasn't a world for people like me.'
'You gave up your responsibility, Jack.'
'What do you mean?'
'The people you despised were wishing harder, setting the world the way they wanted. They are the Night Walkers, whichever form they take. People like you, Jack, people who truly believe, have a responsibility to take a stand and wish the world the way it should be. To wake the land, to dream it real. Belief is stronger than anything the Night Walkers have.'
The crystal birds were still flying around the edges of his vision and there was faint music on the wind, still powerful enough to make his emotions soar. What Niamh was saying echoed deeply inside him. He realised she was
