The chant moved among the trees until it became a solid, living thing, circling back and forth, then inserting probing fingers deep into his mind. He closed his eyes and raised his face so the breeze caressed his skin. The blood was singing in his veins as a tremendous sense of well-being consumed him; he felt roots going down from his body into the soil, moving underground until they joined with the trees and the shrubs. He felt a part of it all.
The next step was the hardest. There was a deep anxiety locked inside him from the time his mind had been almost lost to the sea serpent just off Skye, and he had to fight to ensure the drugs didn't amplify it to the point where it overwhelmed him. He regulated his breathing and focused, riding the waves with mastery. And then it was just a matter of falling back into his head, and back and back, as if he were plummeting into a deep well. Paradoxically, that journey deep within saw him suddenly out of his body. He was in the air over the clearing, looking down at himself and the others, still chanting. The view was strange, fractured; colours seemed oddly out of sorts and the dark was almost a living, breathing thing. He had only the warped perspective for an instant before his mind was jumping like lightning through the woods. There was a sensation like pinpricks all over his body, and then he was blinking, seeing the world at ground level; a wrinkle of his nose and a bound; he was a rabbit investigating the strange scene. Another lightning leap and suddenly he was up in the treetops, seeing with astonishing precision. There was the rabbit, white cotton-tail twitching. He was consumed by raptor-lust; his big owl eyes blinked twice and then he was on the wing. The lightning leap plucked him away again, to a badger snuffling in the undergrowth further afield, to a fox probing the outer reaches of the campsite for any food to steal, to a moth battering against the windscreen of a bus, trying to reach the light inside.
And then, suddenly, he was jolted back into his own body, only this time he was seeing with different eyes, feeling and hearing and smelling with completely new senses. The invisible world was opening to him.
"Come to us," he said loudly. There was a ripple in the chanting, but he felt Breaker glance round the others to maintain the rhythm.
Above him, in the centre of the clearing, the air seemed to be folding back on itself. What looked like liquid metal bubbled out and lapped around the edges of the disturbance. There was an odour like burned iron. Shavi could feel the nascent fear of those sitting near him, but to their credit they all held firm in their trust in him. A hand thrust out of the seething rift with the white colour and texture of blind fish that spent their lives in lightless caverns. Then another hand, followed by arms, elbows wedged, heaving itself out into the night. A head and shoulders protruded between them, featureless, apart from slight indentations where the eyes, nose and mouth should have been. Shavi knew from experience it was one of the human-form constructs shaped out of the aether that the residents of the Invisible World often used to communicate.
"Who calls?" It was suspended half out of the rift, as if it were hanging from a window.
"I call." Shavi knew better than to give his true name. "I seek knowledge. The whereabouts of a mortal child."
The white head moved from side to side in a strange pastiche of thinking. "Know you there is a price to pay for information."
Shavi held up his hand and slit the fleshy pad of his thumb with a hunting knife he had brought from the camp. Several droplets of blood splashed on to the ground.
"Good," the construct said. "A tasty morsel of soul. How is Lee?"
Shavi winced at the mention of his dead boyfriend's name. "No games. Now, information. The mortal child was stolen from this group several weeks ago. A twig doll was left in its place."
"The child is in the Far Lands."
"Alive and well?"
"As well as can be expected."
"Who took him?"
"The Golden Ones enjoy the company of mortals." There was a faint hint of irony in its voice. "They pretend they like to play with their pets, which they do, but that is not the true reason."
This sounded like it could be dissembling, but he pressed on anyhow. "What is the true reason?"
"That answer is too large and important for one such as I to give." This gave Shavi pause; he made a mental note to consider it at a later date. "Rather you should ask me if there is hope the child will be returned," the construct continued.
"Is there?"
"No hope."
"None?"
"Unless the Golden Ones can be made to bow to your will. Or you can provide them with something they need in exchange." There was none of the mockery Shavi had expected in these comments. What was the construct really saying?
"Where is the child?"
"In the Court of the Final Word."
Where Church and Tom had encountered Dian Cecht. Where the Tuatha De Danann carried out their hideous experiments on humans.
"I thank you for your aid. I wish you well on your return to the Invisible World."
"One more thing." There was a note of caution in the construct's voice. "Turn quickly when the howling begins or the world will fall beneath your feet."
Before Shavi could ask about this unsolicited, oblique advice, the construct had wriggled back into the rift and it had folded around him. The warning, if that was what it was, turned slowly in his mind, but he didn't have a second to consider it. Carolina yelled sharply; Shavi followed her wide-eyed, frightened stare.
He was shocked to see Meg, who had been sitting cross-legged at the foot of a mighty oak, was now being swallowed up by the tree. The wood appeared to be fluid and was sucking her into it like quicksand. Her eyes were wide with horror, but she couldn't scream for what looked to be a hand made out of the wood of the trunk had folded across her mouth. It dragged her further in; soon she would be lost completely.
Breaker leapt to his feet and grabbed her right arm, but to no avail. Then all the others joined in, but however much they tugged, they couldn't halt Meg's inexorable progress.
"Wait!" Shavi yelled. He pushed past them and placed his hand on the rough bark. It slid like oil beneath his fingers, attempting to pull him in too. The others fell back, waiting to see what he would do. "Be at peace, Man of Oak. We summoned the Invisible World for information. There is no harm intended to you."
For a moment the repellent sucking at Shavi's hand continued, but then gradually it subsided. The trunk appeared to ripple and an unmistakable face grew out of the ridged bark, overhanging brow shadowing deepset eyes, a protruding nose and a gash for a mouth.
"We know of you, Brother of Dragons." The voice sounded like wood splintering.
There was a gasp of surprise from the others. "I know of your kith and kin too, Man of Oak, though I have never spoken with any of you before," Shavi said.
"We remain silent when mortals walk beneath our leaves. They have never treated the Wood-born with respect." A sound like the sighing of wind in branches escaped the mouth. "But we know you are a friend of the Green and the people of the trees and the people of the lakes, Brother of Dragons. Do you vouch for these others?"
"I do."
There was a moment's pause, and then Meg was slowly ejected from the tree trunk. She fell gasping on to the ground, where Breaker and Carolina ran to help her to her feet. She looked unhurt, but Shavi asked gently, "Are you all right?" She nodded, bewildered; her eyes were still rimmed with tears. Shavi felt a wave of relief that she was safe. He'd read of the dryads and naiads, the tree and water spirits, and he had sensed them at times during his previous explorations of his abilities, but it was the first time they had manifested. This time he had responded instinctively and it seemed to have worked.