Tom hoped he had done enough. More, he prayed he had not made things worse.
The stillness was like the moment after the final exhalation of breath. Shavi thought that place had been that way for as long as time, and would probably remain in that state of suspension until the end of existence. So when the ground shook and the sky cracked with thunder, it really did feel like everything was coming to an end.
Shavi spun round, his heart pounding. The thunder was tearing towards him through the thickening mist. The vibrations drove nails into the soles of his feet.
Was it some kin to the thing that lurked in the mausoleum, sucking up the despair of the dead? The notion chilled him.
He knew there was no point in running. As he waited for it to present itself to him, he became aware of a prickling on the back of his neck, a familiar sign of warning from his supercharged subconscious. When he turned, the sight was so shocking he couldn't help an exclamation. From nowhere the dead had appeared in force, a silent army of thousands forming a grey barrier around the mausoleum. All their eerily staring eyes were turned towards the direction from which the thunderous noise was approaching.
The vibrations were now so powerful the nails had reached Shavi's knees. There was a rhythm to it; not thunder at all. The sound of hoofbeats. All other thoughts were lost as he turned to stare alongside the dead.
The mist usually drifted with a life of its own, but now it was sweeping away rapidly. Unconsciously he cupped his hands over his ears against the deafening noise. The dead remained impassive.
Shavi was buffeted with a warm wind filled with the stink of stables and the musk of sweating, over-worked horses. When the intruder appeared, he was instantly overcome with the swirling destabilisation of perception that always accompanied the most powerful of the Tuatha De Danann. This was worse than anything he had experienced before; his mind revolted at the image his eyes were attempting to present to it. After a few seconds, the sensation eased slightly, to be replaced by a succession of rapidly changing forms: a beast that looked more serpent than animal with gleaming black scales and a pointed, lashing tail, a voluptuous woman oozing sexuality, a pregnant mother, blissful in her fertility.
The uneasy flickering eventually settled on one form that his mind found acceptable. A woman, naked apart from a silver breastplate and a short skirt of leather thongs, long, chestnut hair flowing in the wind behind her, riding a stallion of inordinate vitality. Her beautiful face was filled with pride and joy, power and defiance. In her raised right hand she carried a wooden spear tipped with a silver head, while in her other hand she held aloft a gleaming silver shield. Shavi thought of Boudicca, of the power of womanhood, strength and sexuality so potent he could almost taste it.
"Epona," he said beneath his breath.
Her terrible gaze snapped towards him as if she had heard him, and the sheer force of what he saw there made him look away. Here was a power he had never experienced before, one of the oldest gods, the most primal and powerful, not far removed from the archetypes. Her form had resonated in the belief system of mankind from the earliest time.
The horse reared up before the ranks of the dead, its hooves striking the air. She let that withering gaze move slowly across the army of the dead. It was apparent they were not going to allow her through.
From the way she was directing herself towards the mausoleum, Shavi guessed she was there for Veitch, although he had no idea why. She took her charger back and forth across the frontline of the dead in search of access.
At one point she paused to address the dead in a language Shavi had never heard: wild shrieks that disappeared off the register, interspersed with the snortings of horses. Whatever she suggested, it had no effect.
Why can she not force her way through them? Shavi wondered. But from what he remembered from the stories Tom had told him of the Tuatha lle Danann, one of her obligations had been the Grim Lands, or at least where it bordered with the world of the living. Perhaps she served them as much as she dominated them, in the way that Cernunnos had a similar dual relationship with the Fragile Creatures?
The delay cranked up his anxiety. How long could Veitch survive in the shallow grave with the air running out? What terrible things would be going through his mind?
No air was left in the coffin. Veitch wheezed like an asthmatic old man. The weight on his chest was crushing him. There was blood under his fingernails and his head swam with shifting lights and the sensation of tumbling down a neverending well. No one was coming for him. It was the end; life was being sucked out of him, one breath at a time.
"Lee! I need you! You must help me!" Shavi turned towards the spirit of his boyfriend once again, but the place where Lee had stood was empty, and in the vast crowd of the dead there was no hope of finding him.
Perhaps he could force a way through so Epona could follow. He started to push through the stiff, unmoving bodies towards the frontline, but before he was halfway there he noticed movement not far from Epona. The army of the dead was parting like grey waters before the power of God.
Shavi used his elbows to drive his way towards the path. Epona had already started to trot down it towards the mausoleum. He slipped in behind her before the dead closed ranks.
As Epona moved before the mausoleum door, Shavi caught sight of the reason for the dead's change of heart. Lee waited in the shadow of the stone building, and for the first time that day Shavi saw his face. It was not terrible and frightening and filled with the horrors of death as it had been during the long days and nights following his return in Edinburgh. It was the Lee he remembered: gentle, thoughtful, smiling. For one fleeting moment, things passed between them: acknowledgement, gratitude, friendship, love. And then Lee was moving away towards the grey horizon; not walking, but simply appearing further and further back, as if there were shifts in Shavi's perception. For one instant he appeared to glow like a star, and then he was gone.
Shavi's eyes filled with tears. Lee had achieved his own salvation; he would never have to walk in the Grim Lands again.
He barely had time to think what that meant before he was jolted by a resounding crash as the flinty hooves of Epona's mount broke down the mausoleum door. Although she had appeared too tall to pass through the doorway, a second later she was inside. Shavi ran in behind her.
Close to Epona he felt faintly queasy, his teeth on edge as if he were standing in an electrical field. The goddess moved beyond the rough grave and faced the shadows that still pulsed at the rear of the chamber. From the outside, the Mausoleum appeared twenty feet long, but peering into the gloom, Shavi had the unnerving feeling that it continued forever.
He didn't wait to see what the goddess was doing. Throwing himself on top of the grave, he tore at the shards of rock, the pebbles and soil, with his bare hands. Within seconds the blood streamed down his fingers until his palms were covered with a brown sludge of rock dust and grue.
"Ryan!" he yelled. "Hold on!"
From the corner of his eye, he could see movement in the shadows. Epona's horse reared up to face it; the goddess issued a warning in that half-shrieking, half-equine cry.
The response was not in that deathly voice Shavi had heard before, but an incomprehensible bass rumble filling him with dread. It was followed by the dragging sound of the huge bulk moving across the stone floor. The shadows swelled forward.
Shavi threw the contents of the grave wildly in all directions. It was loosely packed and easy to move, but it was still taking too long.