"Oh, well, you've won me over. Of course I'll help you," Callow mocked.
He wandered over to converse with the Malignos. Church seized the opportunity to talk to Baccharus. "How did the Fomorii manage to get on board the ship without anyone knowing? I thought it was completely under Manannan's control?"
"The power of the Heart of Shadows is growing. The Night Walkers can achieve things they never would have been able to do before."
"Do you think this might actually motivate your people to do something about it?" Church asked acidly.
"It may already be too late for that."
"What do you mean?"
"If the Night Walkers can strike at the heart of Wave Sweeper, they can strike anywhere. They might have already launched their assault on the Court of High Regard."
"If only you'd done something before." Church caught the negativity before it spread. "The first thing we have to do is get out of here." He looked over at Callow, who was performing a mad little dance around the Malignos. "Before that bastard slits my throat. Or worse."
"Then you are fortunate to have friends in low places."
The voice was barely audible, but Church recognised it instantly. It felt as if a mouse was scurrying around his hands. Marik Bocat was hard at work severing his bonds with a tiny implement that occasionally pricked his flesh. A surge of hope rose in his chest, but he kept it from reaching his face.
After a few moments, Callow returned, loping like a wolf. "The arrangements have been made." His eyes slithered from side to side while he rubbed his hands oleaginously. "Once this filthy little skiff has fallen, then it's the turn of your happy little palace of dreams."
Church felt Baccharus stiffen beside him at the news that the Fomorii had not yet moved on the High Court of the Tuatha De Danann. Still hope. Always hope. "What now, Callow?" he said. "Is this where you get your kicks?"
Callow slipped his hand into his threadbare jacket and pulled out a knife whose blade was smeared with dried, brown blood. Church tried not to look at it, but he knew it was the blood of his friends. Callow weighed it in his hand, smiled.
His bonds gave suddenly. He kept his face emotionless, his arm muscles taut. Pace yourself, he thought. Wait until he bends forward. His eyes flickered towards the Malignos; they were too far away to stop him if he was quick enough.
Callow struck like a snake. Church didn't even see the blow, but he felt his forehead rip open and hot blood bubble down into his eyes. He cursed, threw his head back, but Callow, in his crazed state, was sweeping in with eager blows. Church dodged one, but another took his cheek open. The next one might hit his jugular.
He threw himself forward at the same time as did Baccharus, whose own bonds had been sliced. They piled into Callow, who folded up like a sheet on a line, and then their impetus carried him with them as they drove towards the door. The Malignos exploded into a frenzied activity of snapping jaws and flashing limbs. One of their talons caught Church's other cheek and it burst open as cleanly as if it had been sliced with Callow's knife. Their speed was frightening. With reptilian sinuousness they had swept round to attack Church's and Baccharus's exposed backs, but by that time the two of them had reached the door. Baccharus shouted a word, twisted his left hand and the wall shimmered into the waterfall.
They rolled into the corridor with Callow screaming before them, his face contorted with rage. Church silenced him with a sharp headbutt; not wholly necessary, but it made him feel good. Then he grabbed Callow by the collar and hurled him into the path of the approaching Malignos. They fell backwards in time for Baccharus to seal the door.
"That will not keep them for long," he said.
"Doesn't matter." Church fingered the sword that Callow, in his arrogance had failed to remove. "We need to raise the alarm-"
The words died in his throat as the ship came to a sudden, lurching stop. Baccharus's expression told him all he needed to know. The Fomorii had seized control.
Chapter Eleven
It was a graveyard, though why there should be a graveyard in the land of the dead made no sense to Veitch at all. It stretched as far as the eye could see: stone crosses, gleaming white like fresh-picked bones, or chipped and mildewed, some standing proud, others bowed and broken as if they had been forced from the earth; single standing stones and ancient cairns; mausoleums styled with fine carvings of angels; rough built stone tombs. Mist drifted languorously at knee height. The sheer weight of the monuments brought an air of severe melancholy.
As he emerged from the tunnel into the city of the dead, the view triggered all his primal fear of death. His more immediate fears were more prosaic: what if each of those graves and tombs and mausoleums contained one of the dead, ready to rise up the moment he walked amongst them? His heart beat faster.
There was no alternative. He placed a foot next to the first grave and waited for a hand to grab his ankle. Nothing. He proceeded to the next one.
After several minutes the tension was starting to tell. It felt like walking through a minefield. He couldn't let his concentration slide for a moment: if the dead were present, they would choose the moment he least expected to strike, when he was in the midst of the graves with nowhere to turn. He looked around slowly; there was nowhere to run. A million graves, packed so tight he could barely move amongst them.
The direction he had chosen-from the view presented to him by the eggproceeded past one of the largest mausoleums in the vicinity. It haunted the edges of his vision and he found himself drawn back to it continually. Its size made it out of place in the surroundings, but there was another aspect that did not feel right. As he approached it, his gaze snapped back, and back again, on the heavy, marbled door, waiting for a crack to appear, on the way the mist appeared to be drawn towards it. A few feet away he was convinced he could hear something dimly scrabbling within, like an animal, but not.
When he was parallel with it, a small droplet of sweat trickled down his back, like water off a glacier. Even when he had passed by, his anxiety did not diminish, and he could feel it on his back for many moments after.
Eventually, his attention was drawn by what appeared to be a giant crow, sitting on a low, stone box. Shavi had his eyes fixed on the horizon, as Veitch had seen him in the vision presented by the egg. It didn't seem right that he was so still. He wanted to call out to his friend, but the thought of his voice, loud and hard in that place of whispers, filled him with dread.
And so he hurried on, his heart beginning to soar, hardly daring to raise his expectations. His mate, his pal, his buddy, his best friend; alive.
As he neared the unmoving form, he finally found the courage to speak. Shavi's name drifted across the final feet between them, as dry and insubstantial as the spindly trees that poked up amongst the graves. At first there was no response. Veitch's heart started to beat faster: it was all another stupid game, dangle the prize, then snatch it away at the last minute, laughing at how foolish the Fragile Creatures were.
But then a shiver ran through the hunched, dark form, as subtle as wind on long grass.
"Shavi?" Veitch repeated hopefully.
Another tremor. Slowly Shavi's head began to turn. Veitch caught his breath. Would he see something terrible in that face? The eyes of someone driven insane by the experience of dying?
Shavi's limbs moved with the gradual adjustment of a man waking from a deep sleep, and when he did look round, Veitch was relieved to see his old friend as he had always looked. Shavi blinked long and slowly, squinting slightly as he focused on Veitch.