opening out into a larger rock womb. The refuge served the dual purpose of containing the warmth from the small fire he kept alight with kindling from the leafless trees that scattered the lower slopes, and providing protection from the Fomorii that relentlessly prowled the entire mountain range, their oily black forms always visible against the white background.
'Sorry, guys, we'll have to delay dinner,' he said breezily, warming his hands near the embers.
There was no response; Miller had only heard his own voice since the terrible plunge from the shattered bridge leading to the Groghaan Gate. Hunter, Jack and Virginia lay around the edge of the cave, their broken bones and burst organs now healed by the ministrations of Miller's hands, but still only a whisper away from death. The rise and fall of their chests was barely visible. Their eyes didn't move. Their skin felt as cold as the rock.
Once the life had returned to his fingers, he moved from one to the other, checking their vitals and, where necessary, placing a hand on their heart to let some of the thin blue glow leak out of him and into them. The healing energy was diminishing as his own strength flagged. A lack of food, the ever-present chill and the constant need to offer up the regenerative force was taking its toll. How long could he keep it up? Death tugged at Hunter, Jack and Virginia and he fought daily to keep them on the right side of life, but he only had enough energy to keep all their hearts beating, not enough to give them vitality; unless he let one of them die. Only then would he have the reserves to save the remaining two. But how could he choose? Who should he choose? If he didn't make a decision soon, his abilities would be depleted and they would all die.
'Turned out cold again!' he joked brightly before investigating the heap of bird bones for any that had not already been picked clean. He was not rewarded.
Lying down next to the fire, he added, 'I'll just grab forty winks before I head out again. Don't worry. Everything is going to be fine.'
10
For Ruth, only one horizon now existed in the Court of Endless Horizons and that was in the dimension of pain. It had gone on for so long, with such intensity, that it had become the medium in which her body existed, as much a part of life as the air she breathed. She occasionally found herself examining it with a Zen-like detachment, although she knew that was a response to the natural analgesics her brain was flooding through her system. Occasionally, she found herself looking down on her body from high above, seeing her arms yanked over her head and back so that the joints were in permanent agony as she lay stretched across an oaken table, now puddled with her sweat and the blood that had flowed from the thousand tiny cuts made by the obsidian knife. Some went deeply into the muscle tissue, and though she knew the Pendragon Spirit would heal them rapidly, she also realised that Tezcatlipoca would not give her that opportunity. Death would be coming soon.
From her vantage point, she saw Tom, tearful at her suffering, held with a knife at his throat in one corner of the large hall near the top of one of the city's highest buildings, and Laura beside him, her face pale and blank, a spear levelled at her side.
Don't be sad for me, she thought, obliquely. I can survive this. I can survive anything.
Vast windows ran along all four walls, which would once have offered a great vista across the entire city and captured every sunrise and sunset. Now only black lay without. The hall was filled with ranks of the Aztec warriors, their spears banging against the stone flags with each beat of the drum. Ruth knew the beat matched that of her heart, steady, but soon it would be slowing. Soon it would stop.
Where's Church? The notion floated up, detached from any context, and then, Where's Ryan?
In a rare moment of clarity, she realised her instinctive use of the Craft had pulled the essential part of her from her body. A flash of pride came and went: she had never before achieved that state without her ritual and her herbs.
Is this what I'm capable of? From thought to action in the blink of an eye? Is this what we all could do? All that potential in every person. It's a shame I'll never find out.
It didn't matter; in her spirit-form she always had a different perception of what was important, of life and death, and the part all the elements played in what she had heard described as the Great Mystery.
This is what Shavi meant about the patterns, she realised. Rise above it and it all makes a different kind of sense.
Beneath her, Tezcatlipoca raised the obsidian knife again. Ruth was pleased she could no longer smell his decomposing flesh, and she had no desire to witness her body put under more duress so she took her previous thought literally: Rise.
Up to the ceiling, she floated, and then through it into the chamber above, and up until she was inside the dense darkness that enveloped everything. Part of her wanted to keep rising, up past the darkness, past the sky, to search for that welcoming tunnel of light she had heard of so many times, and to see again all those people she missed so dearly.
But she couldn't allow herself to do it, and instead she swooped down so fast that the buildings passed in a blur. When she reached street level, she moved along inches above the cobbles, enjoying the familiar exhilaration. At speed, she ranged through the city, seeing Tezcatlipoca's warriors prowling the deserted streets, slipping into buildings where their victims lay in a jumble and feeling a surge of guilt that she had been indirectly responsible for their deaths; then investigating the other homes and shops, towers, halls and warehouses still packed with the trembling, fearful mass of people who had no idea what was happening around them, but who knew that death was creeping closer. Their faces burned through her dreamlike state and ignited a fierce desire to protect them. She could never give up while a single one remained alive.
The others, she thought. Where are they?
And then the streets and buildings of the Court of Endless Horizons passed in a blur as she searched every corner at speed. Finally she came across Veitch, Shavi, Bearskin, Shadow John and Rachel weaving through an alley to avoid an Aztec patrol as they made their way back to the cafe where they had arranged to meet Church.
As she floated above them, her hazy mind accepted the futility of what she was doing, for in that state she could neither touch nor be heard or seen. Yet to her surprise, Shavi's head snapped up when she came lower and he stared into her face with a shocked expression.
'Ruth?'
Veitch looked at him askance. 'Are you on the mushrooms again?' 'You can see me?' Ruth asked.
Holding off Veitch, who was urging him to move on quietly, Shavi smiled and pointed to his eye. 'This thing is proving a better investment than I ever hoped. What are you doing?'
'You have to come quickly,' she said. 'He's killing me.'
'Who is?'
'The god who's taken control of the city. He's been trying to flush us out.' She glanced at Rachel. 'And, I think, find her. He said he used to be known as… Tezcatlipoca?'
Worry underlined the recognition in Shavi's face. 'One of the most important gods to the Aztecs. This darkness makes sense now — he ruled the night, and death, and he loved tempting people to do great evil.'
'He's got me, and Laura and Tom in one of the tall buildings in the middle of the city. If you can follow me, I can take you straight there.'
11
With every beat of the drum reverberating through the walls and floor, Church felt his anger ratcheting up. From the moment it started, he knew it was counting out the remaining moments of Ruth's life, each thoom bringing a flash of the woman he loved in pain; he saw each cut, each beating, each agonised expression as if he were standing next to her. The images seared into his mind and pushed him towards the brink of madness.
With his exertion in the heat of the rows of lamps and candles, he had sweated himself dry. He could no longer feel his wrists. The constant drip-drip-drip into the puddle on the floor matched the drum's steady rhythm.
