Tom thought he saw the glint of tears in Veitch's eyes, but the Londoner looked away before he could be sure.
"We better do it," Veitch said solemnly.
"Are you sure? This is your last chance to back out."
"Yes."
"You understand where you're going? What lies ahead? What it could do to your mind? You know you might not be coming back?"
Veitch fixed a cold eye on him. "Just get on with it."
A pang of guilt clutched at Tom's heart. He knew what lay ahead, and he knew Veitch could not even begin to guess the extent of the horrors that lurked in the Grim Lands. How could he send the man to face that? But even as he thought it, he knew he had no choice; only Veitch stood a chance of bringing Shavi back. And therein lay the tragedy.
On the edge of the dew pond, Tom knelt down and kissed the damp grass. When he stood back up, he had composed himself. "Are you ready?"
"Bring it on," Veitch replied in a cod-American accent.
Tom closed his eyes and attempted to access the knowledge GogMagog had implanted there. He had already used the secret words of power to dismiss the guardian. Now there was one remaining: the key to the door. He couldn't reach it in his memory by normal means. He simply made a space, and then it leapt into it. He didn't remember speaking, but when he opened his eyes, Veitch was clutching his ears and grimacing.
There was a sound like a jammed door being wrenched open and the air over the dew pond peeled back. Through it Tom could see thick grey fog, swirling in the wind.
Veitch made to say something, but couldn't find the words. Instead, he grinned, winked and then launched himself through the hole in the air. The wrenching noise echoed again as the door closed, leaving Tom alone to stare at the fading visage of Shavi.
Chapter Ten
"Below is time." Church tried to sound more confident than he felt, but Ruth was not about to be fooled.
"I still think I should come with you."
He shook his head firmly. "I'm not trying to protect you like some big macho idiot. You'd be the first person I'd want alongside me in a fight. But I told you, one of us has to be here to see things through."
"You're not being very consistent. You made a big thing about how you felt all five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons had to be together to get a result. Now you're saying I can do it on my own-
"I hate having smart people around me. Okay, I'll be back. Did that sound like Arnie Schwarzenegger? Sorry, I wasted the eighties at the movies."
"You're so lowbrow." She put her arms around him and pulled him to her, planting a wet kiss on his lips. "Be back soon. We have a lot of lost time to make up for."
In the constantly changing corridors where the flickering torches never cast enough light, the kiss brought an ache to his heart. More than anything, he wanted to stay with Ruth, secure in their newfound world, but he knew that was an illusion. He had to journey down into the deep, dark bowels of the ship where there was no security, no softness. He drew his jacket around him, resting one hand on the cold short sword that hung at his belt.
"Life's good as long as you don't weaken," he muttered, repeating the credo he had once only half-jokingly spoken aloud. "Please don't weaken."
The ship grew icier and smelled danker the more he progressed, as if he were journeying beneath the earth itself. He had adjusted to the constant gentle rocking, but the creak of the timbers was like the background chatter of a hundred voices, obscuring other subtle sounds that might come as a warning. The hiss of the torches brought sweetly perfumed smoke to his nose, but the underlying odour of dampness could never be hidden.
After a while he started cautiously trying the doors on either side. Most were locked, some rooms were empty, but in one something that was a mass of tentacles and snapping jaws rushed towards him squealing insanely. He slammed the door and hurried on, vowing not to open any more.
The ship went on forever. More than anything, Church feared getting lost down there, spending the rest of his life wandering around in the dark, living on rats (although he had not seen any vermin-perhaps something else was already feeding on them), slowly turning pale and mad. But he had a gut instinct that the ship was sentient in some way he couldn't explain, and that while the corridors behind him might close and move, when he returned, they would lead him back to the upper decks by one route or another.
At that point he began to wonder if he was really on a ship at all; if the spy he had encountered in Edinburgh had been right and all this was a warped perception brought on by some outside force using drugs or deep hypnotism, for whatever reason. As this thought entered his head, he was convinced he heard the throb of machines and the hubbub of men's voices through one of the doors; it troubled him inexplicably and he chose to hurry on.
Further on, the corridors took on a different appearance, so that it was no longer obvious he was on board a ship. It might have happened so gradually he didn't notice it, or in the blink of an eye, but suddenly the walls were in part limestone, in others, rough-hewn timbers, peppered with holes of varying sizes. It smelled differently, too. The saltiness that had permeated everything had been replaced by a faintly sulphurous odour of dust. The heavy echoes of his tread had taken the place of the constant creaking, nor was he even aware of the ship's rocking. Other sounds were more prevalent now, through the walls or further along the corridor: movement, fast and light like the scurrying of vermin, or slow and laboured as if enormous creatures were shifting slowly.
He was startled at one point by the sound of small feet near to his ear. He turned sharply to see a blur passing quickly across a hole in the wall at head height. One of the Portunes, he guessed, spying on him. The little people were everywhere, the eyes and ears of the ship. But why were they always watching? What did it benefit them?
As the atmosphere became less like that onboard ship, the more the air of tension rose; it was enough to warn Church he had moved into an area of more immediate danger, rather than the general background threat of the upper decks. There was a quality to it that made him queasy. His palms grew slick around the handle of the sword, his knuckles aching from holding it.
His eyes, by now well accustomed to the gloom, felt sore from continually probing the shadows ahead; so much that at first he thought the flickering shapes he occasionally glimpsed were just the tremors of an over-worked eye muscle. But gradually he came to realise there were things moving just beyond the light of the now-intermittent torches, darting around corners at the last moment. He was sure they weren't the Malignos; as Ruth had described them, they would not be so restrained. It could, of course, be Callow, playing some sneaky little game, waiting for just the right moment to attack. But still-
Church almost jumped out of his skin when a hand protruded from an unnoticed branching corridor to his left, reaching for his arm. It was just a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, but he was whirling instantly, lashing out with the sword. His reactions were perfect, but the hand became a blur of golden lightning. Before Church had time to launch another attack, Baccharus stepped out sharply, motioning for Church to remain silent.
Church's angry face passed on all the fury of the curses he wanted to yell out at Baccharus's unthinking approach, but Baccharus, as usual, was oblivious. They hurried several yards along the branching corridor until Baccharus turned and said bluntly, "You must turn back."