For the briefest instant a yellow eye glinted in the dark and he was filled with an immeasurable dread. He turned and ran in the opposite direction until he was sure he had left it far behind him.
"Jack!"
The voice came as a shock because he had seen no sign of any other figure after fleeing the wolf that was not a wolf. It was crystal clear, unlike the other hallucinations, and when he spun round there was Niamh, arms outstretched towards him, her normally placid face filled with concern; it made him fearful to see it.
"It is a maze," she was saying. "If you do not pick your way through, you will be lost."
Unlike the other visions of the Tuatha De Danann, she was able to see him. In fact, he felt she had come looking for him, to lead him out of there, back to safety.
"Your own thoughts are trapping you," she continued.
"How do I get out of here?" he called.
But before she could answer, her face grew scared and she was pulled apart, as if she were nothing more than smoke caught in the wind. Even she did not have power over that place.
After a long while he came to the conclusion that he was not making his way through a maze. It was a whirlpool. The blocked earth energy was causing eddies in the very fabric of reality, sucking him back and forth. How was he ever going to get out of it?
He finally realised the futility of walking and getting nowhere, so he simply sat on the cold, stone floor and tried to think his way out. No further scenarios presented themselves to him, nor did doors open, but during a meditation on the nature of the blue fire, a possible solution presented itself.
Gently he closed his eyes, which seemed a bit unecessary in the uncompromising dark, but it was the only way he could do it. Then, with as much willpower as he could muster, he tried to focus on the earth energy as he had done at the well-head. It was a long shot, but Tom had told him the energy was in everything. Perhaps there was some kind of pattern he could see that would show him the way out.
He thought it would be hard, but it took much longer in coming than it had before; the anxiety gnawing away at him seemed to be a barrier. Eventually he saw the first familiar blue streaks, just flashes against the blackness, like tracer bullets in a night-time air-raid. Slowly, though, his perception came into focus and he recognised that the earth energy was as prevalent there as it had been out on the land.
It seemed that his analogy of a whirlpool had been correct. The tracks of light were sucked into different eddies that formed complex patterns, reminding him of Mandelbrot set illustrations he had seen: chaos everywhere, yet, paradoxically, an overriding pattern to it; a blueprint for existence. The marvel of it was mesmerising; he could certainly see how the ancients had been in awe of its power and majesty. The lifeblood of everything.
Even so, in places the traces of light fragmented or seemed to dry up completely. There was none of the pulsating vitality he had seen when Tom had first introduced him to the blue fire at Stonehenge. Was this what had been happening all over the land, all over the globe: the gradual break-down of the fundamental essence of the world, driven to extinction by people with an increasing morbidity of spirit?
His dreamy musings came to an abrupt end. There was one area where the light was brighter and more forceful; it seemed to be driving in to the confluence of tiny whirlpools that made up the bigger maelstrom. He hurried towards it and was pleased to see that beyond that area there was a definite flow, although it was more of a trickle than a torrent.
He moved as quickly as he could, not knowing how long he could maintain his altered perception. Occasionally it flickered and threatened to fade and he had to fight to bring it back, but he was buoyed by his progress.
The visual and aural hallucinations appeared to have been left behind in the whirlpool area, so he was surprised when an insistent voice came echoing through the darkness to him. Its familiarity was more of a shock: it was his own. As he turned suddenly, the view of the earth energy fizzed out. And there he was, coming towards himself through the void. His ghost-image was subtly changed: longer hair, a goatee, the drawn, pale face of a man who had seen too many terrible things; it was the same Church he had seen watching a burning city in his vision in the Watchtower.
"Is this it? Is this the right time?" his future-self was saying to him passionately; Church couldn't decide if it was fear or anger or a mixture of both he was hearing in the voice. "You have to listen to me! This is a warning!" He looked around, confused, as if trying to work out where he was. "Is this the right place? Am I too late?"
His words fell into relief and Church said quickly, "Tell me what you have to say."
The future-Church shook himself, regained his focus. "When you're in Otherworld and they call, heed it right away! They're going to bring him back! They're-"
"Calm down! You're babbling!" Church yelled. "Who is going to bring who back?"
The other Church suddenly looked terrified, glanced over his shoulder. "Too late!" he yelled.
And then he was gone.
The encounter disturbed Church immensely. The message was garbled, disorienting, but he felt he had missed a vital opportunity to discover something important, perhaps something that would be a life-or-death matter. He vowed to keep the message in his head so that if any fitting situation arose, he would be able to act instantly.
When they call, heed it right away.
At least he had managed to maintain his sense of direction. He continued walking along the path he had been following and soon he saw the gently glowing cavern walls approaching from either side. They met at a rough opening where the tunnel continued. And on a boulder near the entrance sat Tom, quietly sucking on a joint.
"How the hell did you get here?" Church asked in disbelief.
"I walked."
"You know what I mean!"
Tom shrugged, giving nothing away. Then he couldn't seem to resist, and said with a faint smile, "You were the one who had to go through it. It was a test."
"It was a natural obstacle caused by the backed-up earth energy. Wasn't it?"
"It was. But you were drawn into it for a reason. I told you, it was a test."
"Why was I being tested?"
"You know," Tom snapped.
Church tried to make sense of it. "The things I saw out there! It was-"
"I know. I've experienced that kind of thing before. We can carry on now. We've been allowed access."
"You're talking like the blue fire's got some kind of intelligence," Church laughed mockingly.
"It has. Of a kind. Everything thinks, everything feels, everything hurts."
"More hippie bullshit!" Church snorted with derision, but the concept stayed with him. They set off along the new tunnel and after a moment or two, he said, "So tell me, is it God?"
"Call it that if you want," Tom said dismissively. "If you want to reduce something so enormous and complex to such pathetically, childishly simplistic terms."
Church chopped the air with his hand and cursed under his breath, picking up his step so he didn't have to walk in irritation at the older man's side.
And then, suddenly, they were at a blockage in the tunnel. Boulders of varying size were piled up to the tunnel roof.
"Is this what we have to clear to get things flowing again?" Church said.
"Don't be an idiot," Tom replied. "Did you think it would be that easy?"
Through the rock, Church perceived a sound like an engine running. In a moment of frisson he realised it was the sound of breathing.
"Change is the important thing," Tom continued. "You have to bring things out into the open, for good or bad."
Church tried to read his face, but he knew how futile an exercise that was. "I don't like the way you said that," he noted.
The walk back from the strange, ritualistic room had been a blur to Ruth. The pain and shock of her experience had, for a brief while, almost wiped her mind clear. Only one thing had struck her through the haze: a sound from behind a heavily padlocked door, like a flock of birds crazily flying around the confined space.