Veitch looked dazed. "You're saying it really is all over? I thought the message you were trying to drum into us all was that there's always hope? Because that's what I feel here." He thumped his heart. "So I know it's right. You taught us that, and I learned it well. So don't come here with your bleedin' mealymouthed talk of failure 'cause I'm not having any of it. Are you telling me we can't do anything?" He jabbed a finger at Tom's face. "Are you?"
Tom finished his tea thoughtfully. "I know things will come to a head. I know it will be a dark and disturbing time, but I have no idea if the resolution will be the one we all hope for. Perhaps we can do something." At that moment he felt the weight of his great age.
One of the other early diners leaned over them on his way out. He was an old man in a dark, faded overcoat and thinning snowy hair above a similarly bleached face. "Put a smile on your face," he said in his lyrical Highlands accent. "You'll be dead a long time. However bad it is now, think on that."
"See," Veitch said. "Even he can bleedin' well see it."
Rattling his cup in its saucer, Tom stood up and attempted to ease the strain from his limbs. The terrors of the Court of the Yearning Heart had shaken him to the core of his being; he needed time to find his true centre once more, his confidence. He truly didn't know which way to turn, but Ryan was relying on him, as they all had relied on him. He looked down at the childlike hope on Witch's face and felt an abiding sadness.
"Come on, then," he said. "We'd better go and talk to the universe."
The clear night sky was awash with a thousand stars normally obscured by the mundane glow of sodium lights, while the moon shone its brilliant rays through the treetops. The air was warm from the heat of the day and filled with the aroma of pine. The only sounds were their footsteps on the deserted road and the lapping of the waves in the loch.
Veitch couldn't stop looking up at the sky, feeling a small part of something immense and wonderful. Even a country boy would have thought it was special, but to Veitch, raised in a city where the night sky was a mystery, it was unbelievable. Even the thick shadows that swamped the hillsides running to the loch took a friendly cast.
"It's a good night," Tom said, as if sensing his companion's thoughts.
"I've seen a lot of country over the last few weeks, but nothing like this."
"There's still magic out there. Even with all that's happening."
"Maybe it's become more powerful because of what's happening."
Tom was surprised at Witch's insight; it was rarely given voice, but when it did it came in inspirational flashes. "You know what, I think you're right."
"Yeah, magic. Something for us to plug into." They walked in silence for a few yards and then Veitch added, "Shavi would have loved this."
Tom felt humbled by the aching loss he heard in Witch's voice, but there was warmth there, too, of a kind Veitch had never before exhibited. During their journey north to the Court of the Yearning Heart Tom had learned to see his companion in a new light, more than just a caricature of muscles and South London honour; he was a good man, for all his faults, riven by neuroses, but with a decent heart. "He was developing into a fine shaman. I was surprised how quickly he took to his abilities, always pushing back the boundaries, striving to better himself."
"Yeah, that's it, innit? We all try to do the best we can, but it came natural to him. It's not fair he caught it first."
"How do you feel about it?"
"Like I've lost my best mate." Subconsciously he pushed himself a few paces ahead of Tom, head bowed, his hanging hair obscuring his face. "I miss his advice, y'know. He always knew the right thing to say. I've never known anybody… sensible before."
Tom was prepared to continue the conversation, but Veitch pushed on a little further, keen to be alone with his thoughts.
It had taken them most of the day to walk from Inverness, and even their hardened muscles were starting to ache. It would be just an hour or so more before they reached their final destination in Glen Urquhart, the valley running down to Loch Ness. For Veitch, the surroundings were still haunted by his memories of the hunt for the Questing Beast and the subsequent battle that had left him only a hairsbreadth from death.
They came up on the site Tom had identified on the map just before midnight; it was the place where Veitch had found the remains of one of the Questing Beast's victims, but the body was no longer there.
Corrimony was the home of a chambered cairn made of water-worn stone taken from the nearby river Enrick. It lay in green pasture at the foot of pinecovered hills, swathed in an atmosphere of abiding peace.
"Can you feel it?" Tom's voice was almost lost beneath the breeze.
Electricity buzzed in the soles of Veitch's feet, sending not-unpleasant crackles up to his knees. When he held up his hand, the faintest blue nimbus limned it against the dark of the landscape. "Bloody hell," he said in hushed awe.
"Since the Well of Fire at Edinburgh was ignited, this part of the land has come alive. At the right time, in the right atmosphere, it's quite potent." Tom squatted down and stretched out an arm. When his finger was an inch from the sward a blue spark jumped between them.
"What are you going to do?"
"What Shavi would have done if he'd been here, only not as well. I learnt bits and pieces from the Culture, but not enough. I'm not a natural like he was. The Pendragon Spirit is an unbroken chain linking Shavi to the ancient races that set up these things, the ones who preserved their knowledge in the land. He was a lightning rod, attracting it all to him." Tom dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into the claustrophobically low tunnel that led into the heart of the cairn. Veitch heard his voice float back, although the words were obviously not meant for him. "I'm not much good for anything, really."
Veitch followed until they were both sitting on the damp stone flags, backs against the rough rock walls, the stars scattered overhead.
"In times past you wouldn't have seen the night sky." Tom's voice echoed oddly against the stones. "There would have been a roof over us. Probably torn down by some stupid farmer to make his field boundaries. That brief journey through the tunnel into here is one of those symbols I spoke about earlier."
"The new language?" Veitch thought for a second. "The true language."
"It was a mark of distinction, between the real world without and the Otherworld here, a shadowy place where the outside rules didn't hold. It was supposed to symbolise death, too, and birth, or rebirth. Here, we are reborn into a new world of mystery and magic." He took out the tin in which he kept his hash. "Here we are stoned, inznzaculate. "
"I know that one," Veitch said. "The Doors."
Tom slowly rolled a joint, crumbling a portion of hash into the tobacco. "Then you had better prepare yourself for weird scenes inside the goldmine."
"A mate of mine used to smoke all the time. Off his face, morning, noon and night. Didn't mind the odd one myself, like, just to chill, but I couldn't do it like he could."