Jack of Ravens(15)

When the sun touched the quartz stone, lines of licking sapphire flames ran out from the stone circle in all directions, interconnecting at various points to create a vast network and echoing the dream that had come to Church in the fogou. Other lines soared up into the sky over the stone circle, forming a glowing cathedral of light. The blackness of the poison gradually ebbed away and strength began to return to Church’s limbs. He was amazed to see a filigree of blue lines on his own skin, like the meridians used by acupuncturists. The same network, within and without.

Church had an impression of the lines of force running out along the spine of Cornwall, across the Somerset Levels to Glastonbury, to Stonehenge and Avebury, and beyond, across the entire world. And more, Church could see the Blue Fire stretching out across the vast gulf of the years, connecting the future and the past. There and here, then and now, all linked; time and space united.

The force of the vision shook Church to the core. It had the familiarity of a returning memory, and Church couldn’t decide whether he and every other human being had always known about the Blue Fire, encoded in the genes, or if it was peculiar to his own lost memory.

Once the euphoria had ebbed and Church discovered he now had the strength to stand upright, he peered beyond the circle’s comforting perimeter once more. The azure incandescence revealed the approaching threat in stark relief. Moving rapidly across the countryside was a small army of inhuman creatures, squat and brutish with greenish skin, long black hair and monstrous features. It wasn’t their supernatural aspect that shocked Church, but the fact that the uniforms he had thought he glimpsed earlier were human skin and body parts worn as clothes.

‘Redcaps,’ he said, half-remembering the legends of the creatures that had once stalked the border counties.

‘What now, Giantkiller?’ Conoran said with concern.

Church fought back the poison still licking at the edges of his consciousness and wondered why everyone was suddenly relying on him.

‘Knock three times if you want in.’

Church started at the unfamiliar voice emerging as if from the air around him. None of the others showed they had heard it; they were fixated on the rampaging Redcaps, fear evident in their faces. Only Etain looked at Church with pleading eyes.

Church’s head swam. The voice had been in modern English. Another hallucination?

The Redcaps were already crashing into the circle of spiky gorse, their low war chant turning hungry as they scented blood.

Church reacted instinctively, slapping one hand three times on the white quartz stone.

Instantly there was a rumbling beneath his feet as a section of turf tore open in the centre of the circle. It rose up like a gaping maw in a shower of earth and stones. The Redcaps hesitated in confusion.

‘Come on!’ Church said to the others, unsure if it was the right thing to do but rapidly running out of options. He leaped into the dark hole. The other five followed his lead without a second thought, and then the ground thundered shut behind them.



12



‘Stand your ground. Do not be afraid.’ Conoran’s voice was resolute, but its timbre was muffled by the acoustics of the rocky tunnel in which they found themselves.

‘To what monstrous place have you brought us, Giantkiller?’ Owein asked. ‘Is this the underworld home of the Fomorii? Have you led us into the arms of those dark gods?’

‘Be silent,’ Etain said sharply. ‘The Giantkiller has saved our lives.’

‘What were those creatures?’ Tannis asked.

‘As far as I was concerned they were just myths … stories … not real at all,’ Church said. ‘Looks as if the stories had some basis in fact.’ Like the legends of giants terrorising Cornwall, and the stories of ley lines linking ancient sites. Everything that was happening to him had the slick, ungraspable feeling of a dream.

‘Let’s see where this tunnel leads,’ he said, hiding his disorientation.

The air was electric. He could taste iron in his mouth, and there was a feeling of being at the side of the ocean or on a mountaintop. The others followed him in silence, helping him upright whenever the poison overcame the restorative powers of the Blue Fire. He felt permanently queasy as the black and the blue fought for dominance inside him, and he knew that his death had only been delayed, not rescinded.

As they progressed, Church began to feel as if the tunnel was not in the earth at all, but somewhere else entirely. His suspicion was sharply confirmed when they ventured into a large chamber seemingly hewn from the rock. It was permeated by blue light, and for the first time they could see clearly.

Tannis touched Church’s arm and pointed upwards. ‘Proof, my friend, that since you arrived amongst us you have turned our world upside down.’