Phil Rickman - The Chalice

So Don, as a superstitious man, thought straight off. They done wrong. The whole thing. Wrong. Christians and pagans. Conciliation, you can't have it. Isn't meant. There is but one God and He is sore offended. And not only at the trendy bishop and the crazy pagan actress, neither of whom was up to the job. Not only at them, but at the bloody ole mad farmer who'd brought back Satan's buzz. Why the hell had he ever done that?

Miss Diane. She'd brought that thing in. Miss bloody Lady Loony. What she'd got, it was catching.

The heavens over the Tor, still locked in debate, had gone into black and white. Like Dame Wanda's cloak. Another Lady Loony. All drawn to that abnormal hill. Maybe Griff Daniel was right when he said they oughter ram a JCB through Glastonbury Tor. No more Tor, no more loonies, no more bad dreams for honest God-fearing farmers.

All of a sudden, the sky above the tower went as black as Old Nick's arsehole and there was a great loud crack that had Don Moulder backing off in something like cold terror.

She saw the pale lightball again. It shimmered like a second chance, but she made the black mist cloud over it. Out of the foetid, feral-scented air, Ceridwen spoke and the voice came gutturally, like a burp, from out of Diane's own solar plexus.

There, that's better.

Ceridwen smiled and stood before her. Diane felt very weak, enormously relieved. But the relief enclosed an equally enormous sense of loss which she couldn't comprehend. It was like a nightmare where you'd done something frightfully wrong but awoke before you could put it right, and so the relief was relief only at having awakened.

There were more smiles. She saw little Rozzie, her monkey face split in two with glee; Mort, with his braided hair and his warrior's face and, inside his robe, the biggest dick you ever saw. She squirmed in the hospital bed. Visiting time? But it wasn't right. Was it?

'Welcome, sister.' Ceridwen stood in the misty candlelight between the great, grey concrete pillars, her serpentine hair alive with electricity. 'Welcome to the Inner Circle.'

'Where's it gone?'

'It? Why, it's gone about its business,' Ceridwen said.

Ceridwen had been with her forever. She must accept this.

Diane giggled. She did. She felt better. The truth was she'd never been so relieved. That was the truth, wasn't it?

She clutched the darkness to her body, wallowed in the dank, cloudy vapour, got high on the stench.

A man she didn't know said, 'I think there's someone outside.'

'So let them in. It's probably Gwyn. You remember Gwyn, don't you Diane?'

When the wooden doors opened, Diane expected a great and hurtful surge of daylight, but thankfully there was only more darkness. And people.

'Well, my goodness,' said Ceridwen, and she no longer looked quite so happy. 'If it isn't sister Carey.'

St was like entering an elf's house in a children's storybook, but vaster inside; the hall of the Mountain King, the subterranean lair of Gwyn ap Nudd.

In fact, it was a small storage reservoir, half underground, with a mound over it like a tumulus. It must have been out of commission for over twenty years judging by the size of some of the trees which overgrew it. But it was the dream temple. A hollow shell inside organic matter. Directly on the ley. Virtually under the Tor itself. Any time other than this, Powys would have been fascinated.

Inside, there were no trappings of a temple, white or black. No pentagrams, no inverted crosses. Only a few dark couches and rugs between the utility concrete pillars, brown-stained like nicotine fingers. Bizarrely, in the very centre of the former reservoir, there was a utility hospital bed, metal framed, white sheeted.

Diane lay on it.

She'd lost a lot of weight. She had an unhealthy pallor, obvious even down here. She inspected them curiously, her mouth tilted into a smile you could only call complacent.

She showed no relief at their arrival.

For the first time, Powys saw Ceridwen, a heavy, wild-haired woman, an old hippy gone to seed. She was studying Juanita in the light of candles held by others, men and women in ratty looking robes.

'You look well,' she said to Juanita, possibly surprised.

'That's because I'm one of your failures, Ceridwen,' Juanita smiled pleasantly, the goddess shining in her – Ceridwen would see that.

'I don't have failures,' Ceridwen said coldly. 'Some things merely take longer than others.'

'Well,' Juanita was brisk. 'We won't waste your time. We've come to collect Diane.'

Smiles vanished, but Ceridwen seemed unfazed. 'So take her. Why not? Diane, look who's here.'

Juanita said, 'Diane?'

Diane wore a black nightdress. It didn't look right on her. Or maybe – Powys acknowledged a cold feeling in his gut – maybe it did.

'Diane?' Juanita said again, approaching tentatively.

Powys just hoping it wasn't too late, praying the girl would see the light around her and rush to her.

Diane gave Juanita an uncharacteristically coquettish smile.

'Fuck off,' she said sweetly. Behind her, the big wooden doors closed and a shutter clanged in Powys's head.

'OK.' Juanita turned abruptly away from the bed. Powys thought she must be a good deal less cool than she looked.

Forehead furrowed, she faced Ceridwen close up. 'What exactly have you done?'

'I've set her free,' Ceridwen said simply. 'Haven't I, Diane?'

'Yes, Nanny,' Diane said and giggled.

Powys said, 'She's told her about Archer.'

'Of course,' Ceridwen said to Juanita, goddess to goddess, dark to light.

'And she's conjured DF's pet elemental?' Powys said. 'The wolf from the North?'

'And sent it on its way!' Ceridwen's voice ringing. 'If you only knew the beauty of it, Mr J.M. Powys.' But still looking at Juanita.

'You want to explain it to me?'

Ceridwen smiled at Juanita.

'I'll tell you, then,' Powys said, realising, with a feeling of deep sickness, that he could. 'Goes back to 1919. When Roger Ffitch had the opportunity to lure DF – even then potentially the strongest magician in the whole of the Western Tradition – on to the dark path. By exposing her to the Chalice.'

Ceridwen didn't react.

'And possibly his cock,' Powys said. 'Because Roger wasn't subtle.'

If they were going to get Diane out of here, they'd have to play for time. Sam's fires would bring people – any people would do.

'All she had to do.' Powys said, 'was release that black elemental force against him. The Dark Chalice – him being a Ffitch – would have shielded him. And both of them would have lived happily and Satanically ever after. They might even have married. Right?'

Ceridwen turned at last to look at him.

'Unfortunately,' Powys said, 'it rebounded. As these things often do.'

'Seldom do,' Ceridwen said.

'But then you would say that, wouldn't you?'

Making himself meet her brooding, dark brown gaze.

'Being a crazy old ratbag.' He smiled at her, his insides freezing up at her expression. This woman was steeped in it.

'Anyway,' he said. 'She did produce it. But she immediately saw what she'd done and eventually she gets it back. Which was tough, a lot tougher than letting it go. But it made her a better person and stronger. Better equipped, anyway, to deal with what she'd stumbled on.'

Ceridwen's steady gaze was a long tunnel, no light at the end. No end, in fact.

'The Chalice,' Powys said. 'A receptacle for evil. Naturally, she wanted to destroy it. The way she'd wanted to destroy Roger Ffitch. But the very act of destruction was negative and it rebounded. Violet was very confused.'

'She could have had it all,' Ceridwen said.

'If that's your idea of having it all,' Powys said mildly. 'It just shows how bloody shallow you bastards are. Anyway she went back to Dr Moriarty for advice and maybe he put her on to a third party – not an occultist, but certainly a visionary. Someone already obsessed with the concept of the Holy Grail.'