"Why not?" Almost a plea.
"There are rules, Church. Things going on that you can't imagine, beyond what you see here, or there, or anywhere. I can't tell you… can't explain. I'm not allowed."
"Not allowed by whom?" Her face grew still. She took a step back towards the pillar. "No! Okay, I won't ask any more about that!"
She smiled, brighter this time. "It's good to see you, Church."
For a brief while, he couldn't see for the tears. "Thank you," he choked as a delaying tactic, "for the contact you made in the house… on Mam Tor… The writing…
"I had to do something, Church. I couldn't bear to see you so broken."
"You could see me?" No answer. "Okay… the part of you the Fomorii have-"
Her face darkened; she hugged her arms around her, a mannerism he recalled her doing when she was distraught; when she was alive. "It feels like it's tearing my heart out."
His voice grew rough and fractured. "I'm going to save you, Marianne."
Her expression was, if not quite patronising, then certainly pitying.
"I am." Reassuring at first, then defiantly: "I am."
His emotions felt they would break him in two. He wanted to ask her about her death, about who had killed her, how bad it had been, whether she had really suffered as he always imagined, but looking into her face where the Marianne he loved still resided, he couldn't bring himself to do it. There were a thousand questions, but his overwhelming desire was for the one thing every bereaved person wished for above all else, but could never, ever achieve: to tell her how he truly felt.
As he was about to speak, she silenced him with a raised finger. "I know how you feel, Church, and I always felt the same about you. You were the only person I ever loved."
He covered his eyes.
"I know your thoughts now, Church. I know your hopes. And that's a good thing, truly. In the days that follow, remember that. And I know about Ruth, and that's okay. She's a remarkable person. You've made a lot of silly mistakes since I died, but she was the right one. You stick with her, she'll stick with you."
A sob choked in his throat. "I miss you."
"I know. But you should have learned a lot of things by now. That nothing is truly fixed in the Fixed Lands." Her use of words he had heard before brought him up sharp. He blinked away his tears and started to listen. "You see things from your own perspective, but in the broad sweep of existence, things look very different. When you know the rules, everything changes. Things are switched right around when they're put in context: what seems a bad experience becomes good, good, bad. I can't explain better than that at the moment, but you can't judge now, Church. Just accept things, and know there's something more."
"I know, I do."
"But sometimes it's hard."
He nodded.
"Feel it, don't think it. The Age of Reason is long gone."
"I feel so tired, Marianne. I want a rest from all this."
Her smile grew sad. "There won't be any rest, Church."
"I heard that before."
"It's true. No rest. But there'll be a balance. You'll know why there's no rest, and though it'll be hard, it'll make you feel good to know that what you do is valuable."
"Life's good as long as you don't weaken."
She laughed, and he was surprised at how wonderful it sounded, even in that place. "That's the kind of person you are, Church. A good person. Someone for people to look up to-"
"You haven't been watching very closely over the last few months, have you?" Church moved around the circle a few paces to get away from the glowering stare of the Other-Church, but it matched him pace for pace.
— you shoulder your burden and still focus on what's important in life. It won't grind you down. Life's too good."
He shrugged. His surroundings had started to intrude and so he asked, although he didn't want to, "What are you doing here, Marianne?"
"You called me."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you just don't know you did."
He turned his thoughts over rapidly, trying to make sense. "I'm here to get rid of the Fomorii corruption that's eaten its way into me from the Kiss of Frost that you-that Calatin made you-give me. That's why I'm here. At least, I think that's why. Nothing makes sense any more. Nothing ever has."
There was movement in the shadowy distance, high above the mountains, against the sky. At first he thought it was clouds, but it looked briefly like a Caraprix, only enormous, hundreds of feet larger than the tiny creatures the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorii carried with them. It was gone so quickly he could easily have dismissed it as a bizarre hallucination, except that he was convinced it had been there. The part of his back brain that always attempted to make sense of what was happening told him he had glimpsed something of a much larger truth, although what it was, and why the Caraprix felt so at home in that place, was beyond him.
"Church." Marianne called his attention back. "The symbolism is bigger than the reality. In the wider sweep of existence, symbols tell the truth. I'm the cause of all your misery, Church. I'm what's holding you back from achieving your destiny. The stain of the Night Walkers is minor compared to that, and it wouldn't even be there if I wasn't holding it in place."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want to talk like smart people?" Her expression was teasing. "Or shall we carry on as we always have done?" He motioned for her to continue. "Thanatos, the death urge. When I died, you were consumed by it. That's what infected you. It made your days black, your thoughts worse. You couldn't see life, you couldn't see yourself. You've pulled away from the worst part of it, but it's still there, a little black cancer of the soul. A mess on that Fiery Network that makes up the real you, stopping the true flow. Making something so vital and powerful grow dormant. You have to wake the sleeping king if you want to save the world."
"All that Arthurian stuff is a metaphor. For waking the Blue Fire in the land. Nothing to do with me."
"As without, so within. This whole business is about celebrating life in all its forms, Church. Seeing death as part of a cycle: life, death, rebirth. You've been through the damn thing yourself, as have most of your merry little group. Haven't you got the picture yet?"
"I have to let go of you, is that what you're saying?"
"You don't have to forget me. Just remember the good parts. Don't let death rule your life."
The Other-Church's expression was even darker now, murderous. "Am I really seeing you?" Church asked. "Or is this some hallucination, some part of my subconscious speaking to me?"
"You should know better than to ask questions like that by now."
"Then what do I have to do? It's one thing saying I won't obsess about death, but it's a subconscious thing-"
"Just wish, Church. Wish so hard it changes you from inside out. Kids know best how existence works. We unlearn as we go through all those things the Age of Reason saw fit to throw at us during our formative years. The Celts never had that, all those ancient people who shaped the world. You know I'm not some stupid, anti-progress Luddite. But the truth is, we took a wrong turn and now it's time to get back to how things should really be. A time to feel. The world's been waiting for this for a long time."
"For all the death and suffering?"
"No, of course not. It's your job to minimise that. But it's not your job to take things back to the way they were. You've got a bigger destiny than you ever thought, Church. It's all down to you to make things better."
His lips attempted to form words, but nothing would come.
"Just wish, Church." A whisper. "Just wish."
He closed his eyes. And wished; not with a thought, but with every fibre of his being, and he found power was given to that wishing from somewhere else, either deep within himself, or without, in the distance where strange things moved against the sky.