The Burning Man, page 12
part #2 of Kingdom of the Serpent Series
‘The things you could do with the Craft. You were scary.’
‘Still am.’
Another thunderous barrage of explosions lit the heavens, but now they were oblivious to it.
Another memory ignited on Sophie’s face, sorrowful this time. ‘That awful thing you went through … the one you killed … you poor baby.’
Mallory tried to brush it off, but a tremor ran through him. ‘We can’t become Brothers and Sisters of Dragons until we experience death.’ His expression grew puzzled. ‘But you … I’m still having trouble …’
The brief moment of anxiety was driven out by her smile. ‘Forget about me! I was just a little rebel girl who hooked up with a bunch of travellers. Nothing compared to you.’ She grabbed his head and kissed him with a desperate passion. ‘We were both lost until we met each other. Getting together in Salisbury – that saved us, didn’t it?’
He nodded, unable to take his eyes off her face.
‘What the Void did to us with those fake lives … Seeing each other every day but never being able to talk, not knowing how much we meant to each other—’
Mallory kissed her again. It was soft and deep and their bodies folded together while fire roared across the sky. Gently, Mallory’s hand moved up to her breast and his thumb circled her hardening nipple. Sophie kissed him more deeply, one hand caressing his erection before undoing his trousers and sliding her hand inside. Heat, delirious sensation and a torrent of emotion overwhelmed them, everything that had been denied them in recent months.
Not caring where they were or who might see them, Sophie pulled Mallory down onto the balcony floor. Hard and hot, he slid inside her, and then they kissed, and made love, and agreed a silent covenant that they would never be torn apart again.
8
Caitlin found Mallory and Sophie asleep on the balcony, wrapped in each other’s arms. She was pleased for them, yet also, oddly, a little sad. If she could, she would have examined that feeling, but the voices of Amy, Brigid and Briony chattered continually in her head, warning her of terrible danger, trying to take control of what they called her ‘day-mind’ so they could drive her to hide or flee.
Yet the raw return of her own memories caused sufficient pain to keep her own personality in control. She recalled with a terrible surge of grief the deaths of her husband and son, a shattering event that had broken her mentally and rebuilt her as a Sister of Dragons. The memory of her possession by the Morrigan, too, was harsh and bathed in blood. It had turned her into a warrior who could overcome anything, but when the Morrigan had finally departed she had hoped she would finally be granted peace.
She crept out of the apartments without waking Mallory and Sophie and made her way into the dark jumble of stinking streets. Figures flickered in and out of the shadows, cut-throats and cut-purses, predators of all kinds. They circled Caitlin from a distance, watching from alleys and doorways, following then retreating.
Caitlin was oblivious. The chatter in her head was the sound of heavy machinery. Eventually, she gripped her temples and shook herself furiously, screaming, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’
The figures all around paused in their secret machinations, then slowly melted into the darkness.
The sudden silence inside her mind was like the sea at night. Caitlin almost felt like crying. ‘Now,’ she said firmly, ‘tell me where I need to go.’
The Hunter’s Moon was an inn of gothic proportions, with overhanging eaves and oddly pitched roofs, turrets and gargoyles. Through the diamond-pane windows, candlelight glimmered. It appeared to be the most welcoming place in the entire city.
Within, though, the mood was subdued. Small groups of drinkers indulged in whispered conversations, eyes flickering towards Caitlin before quickly moving away, scared and desperate. The clientele was a bizarre collection of grotesques, with horns and wings, scales and cloven hooves and hair that moved of its own accord. Caitlin saw none of the golden-skinned Tuatha Dé Danann, however.
‘Tell me where,’ she snapped out loud. The drinkers closed the ranks of their little groups for fear she would join them.
She found Jerzy in one of the tiny rooms in the rabbit-warren rear of the inn. He sat at a table with an unnaturally tall, thin man dressed in black with a stovepipe hat that appeared to be permanently on the brink of falling off. Two tankards of ale sat before them.
‘The universe is going to hell and you’re sitting here having a drink,’ she said, not unkindly.
Jerzy jumped up, almost knocking over the table. His drinking partner snatched up the beer before it was spilled, adding flamboyantly, ‘Dear me! Almost a catastrophe!’
‘I was only catching up with an old friend,’ Jerzy protested.
‘It’s all right, Jerzy.’ Caitlin ruffled his green hair. ‘Never forget to snatch the little moments of pleasure in the middle of all the misery.’
Jerzy gave her a puzzled look. ‘Mistress Caitlin? Forgive me, but you seem … changed?’
‘Waking up from a bad dream does that. Who is this?’ She nodded towards Jerzy’s drinking partner.
Shadow John, said Brigid in her head.
‘Shadow John,’ said Jerzy.
Unfurling his long frame, Shadow John bowed deeply, catching and tipping his hat in the process. ‘I must say, it is a pleasure to meet a Sister of Dragons,’ he said, beaming. ‘I have been blessed to meet your kind before, and it is always a source of wonder.’
‘Thank you.’ Caitlin pulled up a stool. Shadow John hastily sought out the barman and returned with a goblet of red wine.
‘Why is everyone here so scared?’ she asked.
Shadow John flinched and looked away.
‘No one here will say,’ Jerzy explained. ‘I have asked, but they are all sworn to secrecy. Even I, who was once one of them, am excluded.’
‘Spies are everywhere,’ Shadow John said through a fixed grin.
‘You can talk to me,’ Caitlin said sweetly. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’
Only us, Amy, Brigid and Briony said together.
Shadow John shook his head slowly, barely able to form the words: ‘All is seen and heard.’
‘By whom? The Enemy has infiltrated the court?’
But Shadow John would say no more.
‘All right, those are questions for another time,’ Caitlin continued. ‘What I need to know now is, where is the Morrigan?’
Shadow John cried out and ran from the room.
A gust of wind down the chimney made the fire roar. ‘I don’t think we’re safe here at all,’ Caitlin said.
9
‘Are you sure we should be doing this, master?’ Jerzy’s chalk-white face was hidden in the folds of his sodden cowl as he bowed his head against the torrential rain. The white horse he had borrowed from Niamh’s stables made its way slowly through the treacly mud of the lane. ‘This land is dangerous now. We are at risk of attack anywhere outside the court’s walls.’
The rain reminded Mallory of trekking on horseback across Salisbury Plain. It had been a similarly difficult time with threats on every side, yet the simple fact that he could recall it filled him with elation. His love-making with Sophie the previous night had unleashed a flood of memories, and it was a struggle to assimilate them into the life he thought he had. It had affected Sophie the same way. Unsettled, she’d been sad to see him go, but they both knew there was no choice in the matter.
‘I’d be an idiot to be sure about anything in these times,’ he said, ‘but I do know we’re going to need all the help we can get.’
‘There are swords in the court—’
‘Not like this one. There are three great swords of Existence, filled with the power of the Pendragon Spirit. This one is Llyrwyn. I carried it for a while before the Void took everything away from me. Church has another of the swords, Caledfwlch. And it sounds like that bastard Veitch has the third, only somewhere down the line that one has become corrupted.’
‘But you don’t know where the sword is now. It was lost when the Devourer of All Things made its changes.’
‘I’m making an educated guess. The sword had a keeper. I’m betting she found it and brought it back here until it was needed again.’
The landscape was suffused with rain, dripping from the trees, pooling in the meadows where the grass glistened a damp October green, spattering off the brown hedgerows. They came over a ridge to find the Court of Peaceful Days, still and brooding. The martial banners hung limply and the gates were shattered. The once well-tended grounds were overgrown with long grass and willow herb pressing hard against the sprawling low buildings. An oppressive air of desolation lay upon it.
‘The Enemy must have struck!’ Jerzy whined. ‘Oh, how this court has fallen! Once it rang with war drums and the clash of metal, with songs for the lives given to battle for the sake of glory and honour. But then its forces were decimated in the war with the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders and a great sadness fell upon the place. And now this!’
‘The sword might still be here,’ Mallory said. ‘Let’s go.’
No birds sang as they made their way through the gates to the great front door, which hung open, unattended; the only sound was the constant hammering of the rain on the buildings.
They tethered their horses and Mallory led the way into the atrium. It was cold and silent. Jerzy made intermittent whimpering noises until Mallory glared at him to stop.
They passed through room after room, all deserted. In some, they found an upturned table or chair, occasional shattered glass, enough to hint at trouble, but nothing that indicated an invasion by overwhelming force.
‘I do not understand,’ Jerzy whispered. ‘Queen Rhiannon’s warriors had renounced violence, but they still would have defended the court with their lives.’
‘Maybe they were surprised.’ Even as Mallory said it, it didn’t ring true.
Eventually they came to the iron-studded oaken doors of the great hall. They had been sealed shut with chains, and warning sigils were scrawled all over them. The carcass of a gutted dog lay before it, now just fur and bone.
‘Can you read those?’ Mallory nodded towards the sigils.
Jerzy cowered. ‘They are marks of great power, warning of destruction to anyone who crosses the barrier to this room.’
‘Looks like this is where we need to go.’
Jerzy moaned, but Mallory was already in search of the armoury. In the dripping darkness of a stone sub-cellar, he located several barrels of gunpowder. He forced Jerzy to help him carry two barrels to the door of the great hall, leaving a trail of the black powder along the corridor.
‘Master, are you not scared of bringing destruction upon your head?’ Jerzy asked as Mallory prepared to strike a flint.
‘Firstly, I’m not anybody’s master and you really need to stop calling me that. Secondly, I don’t think I’m coming out of this whole business in one piece so there’s no point being timid.’
‘You remind me of my good friend Church.’
‘Insult me, why don’t you. I’m a party guy. He’s got the world on his shoulders, and we all know what all work and no play lead to.’ Mallory struck the flint and the gunpowder fizzed into life.
They dashed around the corner before the deafening explosion sent a flare of heat that scorched the walls of the corridor. Smoke and stone dust clouded the air as they clambered over the rubble to where the doors had been. The rain now fell through a large hole in the roof, and part of the wall had been demolished.
The hall was dark and windowless. Mallory lit a torch and progressed cautiously into the gloom. Halfway across the hall, amidst the echoes of his footsteps, the torchlight illuminated something glowing at the far side.
Jerzy tugged at Mallory’s sleeve. ‘Master … good friend, let us be away now. I am scared.’
‘What is that?’ Mallory tried to pierce the enfolding dark. He continued to advance. The golden glow came and went as the torch flickered, and finally he realised it was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
‘Who’s there?’ he called out.
The figure made limited movements and a high-pitched whine that set his teeth on edge.
The torch finally revealed Rhiannon, the queen of the court, encased to her neck in an iron sheath, her arms pulled into a crucifix position by chains suspended from the ceiling. Hooks on wires kept her eyes permanently open. Her mouth had been sewn shut.
‘God, how long has she been like this?’ Mallory rushed forward to free her, but her whining increased insistently. As he struggled to release the iron sheath he saw why: tiny needles on the underside of the sheath dug deeper into her flesh with every attempt to remove it.
Jerzy fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face at the queen’s suffering. ‘What evil could do such a thing?’
‘We know what evil.’ Mallory looked into Rhiannon’s eyes briefly, but what he saw there was too much to bear. His gaze fell on a long iron box on a stone plinth nearby. A thin blue light leaked from it. As Mallory examined it, soothing whispers filled his head.
‘The sword’s in here,’ he said. But as he went to open the box, Rhiannon’s muffled cries rose up urgently. Mallory backed away. ‘Makes sense they’d booby trap it.’ He returned to Rhiannon. ‘There’s got to be a way to free her.’
‘Only the Enemy would make release cause more pain than imprisonment,’ Jerzy said.
Mallory forced himself to look into Rhiannon’s eyes again to let her know he would help. But she repeatedly rolled her eyes down and to the left. Mallory followed the direction she was indicating.
All he could see was a silver clasp at the shoulder of her dirty, torn dress; tentatively, he reached for it.
The clasp became fluid, turning into a silver egg that sprouted eight legs. Mallory snatched his hand back.
‘It is a Caraprix,’ Jerzy said. ‘All the gods have them. Companions, confidantes … they have a strange power all their own.’
‘She wants me to take it.’ Mallory hesitated, then held out his hand palm upwards. The silver spider scuttled onto it, throbbing with light and power, though cool to the touch. Mallory held it up to eye-level.
Before he could react, it leaped, the sharp, silvery legs clinging to his face as it forced his lips open, then his teeth. He gagged, tried to rip it out, but it was like mercury, sliding through his fingers into his mouth and down his throat. The bulk of it closing his airway brought panic. Clawing at his throat, he saw stars, and then felt a sharp stabbing pain. A second later he was unconscious.
But the darkness led instantly to light. Fractured images passed before him, a world seen through oil, with a silvery landscape and a silvery sky merging into one. Enormous creatures moved against the distant skyline and after a while Mallory realised they were Caraprix, but greater and more powerful than he would ever have believed. With the vision came the knowledge that he, and everyone, had misjudged them: not pets or parasites, companions or confidantes. They were greater than anything in the Fixed Lands or the Far Lands, greater perhaps than everything.
He heard a voice saying, ‘The closer things are to the heart of Existence, the more fluid they become.’
But then the image shifted, and in that dreamy vision he saw warriors dressed all in black with hoods over their heads. Flashes of perception: the warriors running through the Court of Peaceful Days; Rhiannon’s warriors falling beneath sword and axe; and then the warriors advancing towards him, and Mallory realising he was seeing the scene through Rhiannon’s eyes. Another flash. Frightening yet incomprehensible images, and then a slow, subtle revelation …
Mallory came round with a concerned Jerzy leaning over him and the Caraprix scuttling away from his mouth and back to Rhiannon.
‘We have to get at the sword. We can use that to free Rhiannon,’ he said.
‘How do you know these things?’
‘It told me.’ Mallory examined the box again. ‘Touch this the wrong way and it’ll release a blade that’ll take your hands off at the wrist.’
‘You could just blow it up with gunpowder,’ Jerzy said archly.
‘Sarcasm. Good. You’ll be one of us in no time. Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea except I know for a fact that there’s only one way into it.’
Mallory steeled himself and went over to Rhiannon. Of all the Tuatha Dé Danann, she was one of the most compassionate and it was a tragedy that she suffered so. The hope in her wide eyes made it even worse.
‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ he began. ‘The only way to free you without killing you is with the sword. And the only way to open the box is with your hand. That’s the trick of the trap. Here you both are, a few feet apart, yet it’s a puzzle that’s impossible to solve.’ He took a deep breath to hide the tremor in his voice. ‘Or nearly impossible.’
She was trying to read his face, but couldn’t see the answer.
‘I can open the box if I cut off one of your hands.’
Her eyes stretched wider than he would have thought possible. The whine in her throat grew high-pitched once again. He wanted it to stop.
‘We don’t have to worry about shock or blood loss killing you. Your kind are tougher than that. But the pain will be unbearable. No anaesthetic, nothing to dull it. It could scar your mind for ever.’ He fought to calm his pounding heart so that he didn’t make it worse for her. ‘Do you want me to proceed?’
Her eyes continued to scan his face, searching for another way, hoping against hope. Finally she signalled her agreement. A single tear trickled from the corner of one eye to the edge of her mouth where it moistened the dry stitches.
‘Left or right?’
She indicated her left.
Mallory nodded as dispassionately as he could and turned to talk quietly to Jerzy. ‘Bring me a boning knife from the kitchens.’
‘Good friend, are you sure you can do this?’ Jerzy whispered.
‘The sick thing is, I’ve done much worse than this in my life. I can’t afford to be pathetic. I have to do it for her.’
‘You spoke of the pain scarring her mind. But this act will scar your own mind.’
‘Just fetch the knife, Jerzy.’
