Here Church and Veitch were tortured by a sickly, sadistic, half-breed Fomorii by the name of Calatin. Calatin was the leader of the main Fomorii tribe which achieved ascendancy after the long-ago destruction of the supreme, Evil power which had controlled and shaped their race. This power, as we all soon came to learn, had been known by the Celts as Balor, the one-eyed god of death, but even that description does not do justice to a force that epitomized the ultimate darkness, the ultimate evil, the end of everything. Yet Calatin's path was not clear; there was insurgency within the ranks, and another, smaller tribe, led by a Fomorii sorcerer named Mollecht, challenged for authority. Whichsoever of them destroyed the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons and gained the four talismans would have the upper hand.
In the cells, Church was reunited with Tom, who had been taken prisoner by the Fomorii after the events in Salisbury. With the help of the women from the Watchtower, the three prisoners escaped and continued on their quest.
In Glastonbury, Ruth, Laura, and Shavi followed a trail of clues which eventually brought them to my attention and the secret which I and my peers had guarded for so long: the hiding place of the cauldron talisman, which I knew as the Grail, deep within Glastonbury Tor. That brief meeting with them transformed my life and prepared me for the privations which were to lie ahead; it was obvious, even to me, that they were special, that they, perhaps, were our only hope. They left for the for with my prayers.
Church, Veitch, and Tom made their way slowly across Cornwall, where another manifestation of the dead Marianne made Church realize, for the first time, that she had not taken her own life; she had been murdered. That recognition was a turning point. Eventually they arrived at Tintagel, one of the legendary homes of King Arthur, and here Tom finally revealed Arthur was not a real person, but a symbol of something he called the Pendragon Spirit, the force that was encompassed by the blue fire and which bound the five of them together. The myths and legends were the secret history, he said; a code that was written large across the landscape.
From under Tintagel they took the second of the talismans, the sword. Barely had they held it in their hands than they fell under attack once more, this time from Mollecht, whose dabbling with the blackest magic had transformed him into a nexus of energy which could only be contained by a constantly swirling murder of crows. Cut off on the bleak promontory, they eventually found themselves tumbling into the raging sea.
It should have meant certain death, but they were reborn from the waves, the first of many resurrections which has served only to cement their reputation as their story became widely known. Their saviour on this occasion was Tom, a man who consistently claimed he could tell no lies, but who rarely volunteered the truth.
His reticence masked both his true worth as a person and his abilities; he had shown before that he was a font of wisdom, but they had no idea he had a smattering of what can only be called magic; an ability to control, if only in small ways, the blue fire. As they fell to the waves, he somehow focused his mind enough to move them along the lines of energy to another powerful node of the earth force.
And so, as Ruth, Laura, and Shavi sat atop Glastonbury Tor waiting to seek out the third talisman, they were shocked to see Church, Tom, and Veitch fall from the sky nearby, their lungs filled with sea water, on the highest point in the surrounding landlocked countryside.
Thus the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons assembled for the first time; and after entering Glastonbury Tor, they made their initial crossing to the other place, T'ir n'a n'Og, the Land of Always Summer, home of the gods. The third talisman was deep inside a temple guarded by a strange hall of mirrors; the reflections cast by the glass tormented the five with their worst fears, but Church battled through and seized the cauldron. If only I could have been there when they returned to Glastonbury to see the Grail, the manifestation of God's love and power, for the first time in an age. Even though it harks back to a time before Christianity, thus disproving many of the apocryphal stories of the crucifixion, something so wonderful could only have come from God.
But the five were not concerned with such matters; to them it was a tool to save our world. From Glastonbury, the six companions traveled into South Wales to reclaim the final talisman, the Spear of Lugh. Part of it was held in a grove of severed heads on Caldey Island near the resort of Tenby, and the spearhead was hidden underneath Manorbier Castle, which lay on a nearby headland. Once the two were joined, the task appeared to be complete, but of course the Fomorii would not cede victory in that way.
That night the Wild Hunt attacked in earnest. The companions fought bravely, but their strength was nothing compared to the terrible supernatural power ranged against them. Finally, in a valiant act of sacrifice, Ruth launched herself at the Erl-King with the Spear of Lugh, ramming the weapon into his chest. When the two of them disappeared down a hillside into the night the others thought her dead, but Ruth had survived to witness an amazing transformation in the Erl-King. The monstrous form he had adopted as part of the Wild Hunt was just one of his aspects; he was a Golden One, one of the senior entities with an affinity for nature, whom the Celts had named Cernunnos, among many other shifting identities. He had been corrupted and controlled by the Fomorii Wish-Hex, but the Spear had freed him. In gratitude, he offered Ruth his patronage and branded her hand with his seal to mark his support.
With the Wild Hunt departed, the storm was over, and the companions were free to continue their mission, or so they thought. The next morning the others sought provisions, leaving Laura to guard the talismans. She was attacked and left for dead by Callow, whom they had not seen since that night in the Salisbury pub. He had accepted the patronage of the Fomorii; became a quisling, a betrayer of his entire race. He took the talismans and gifted Laura a face scarred by his razor.
Of all the players in this great game, Callow still haunts me the most. I often wonder what motivated him to throw in his lot with creatures so alien and powerful they could have crushed him in an instant. His life had been difficult, certainly, but was that justification enough for him to seek personal gratification at the expense of everyone else on the planet? It seems to me now that Callow was the antithesis of the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Faced with hardship, they gave of themselves selflessly. Faced with the same choice, Callow simply did what he could for himself. There we have it, the best and worst of humanity given flesh.
With Laura on the brink of death, the others had no choice but to take her with them in pursuit of Callow. They raced across the country and prepared to head him off in the Lake District, where the first of the great betrayals took place. And of all people, the betrayer was Tom, although he was not truly to blame. While a prisoner of the Fomorii, they had inserted a Caraprix into his head; these, as we have all since become horribly aware, are small, shape-shifting creatures with which both the Fomorii and the Tuatha De Danann have some strange relationship. In Tom's case, it attached itself to his brain and controlled his actions, forcing him to lead the others into the hands of Calatin; all, that is, except Ruth, who escaped. Encountering a wise woman, she was shown her destiny as a controller of the powerful forces which came from the moonlit realm of the triple goddess. Within hours she had once more proved her remarkable worth by rescuing the others while Mollecht and Calatin's tribes foolishly fought over their prisoners. With the talismans once more in their possession, they fled for Scotland.