‘We should go,’ said Galti. ‘It’s getting dark. Well, darker.’ It was too: a very fine rain made a veil of the air.
Loys heard a noise from behind a tent. He went to investigate. Sheep. Or rather a sheep suckling a single lamb. A single black lamb. Loys remembered the book he had read. Black lambs were sacrificed to Hecate. He walked through a line of tents and lean-tos. At the top of the hill was another black lamb, this time in a rough wooden cage. He ran down into the valley that dipped by the walls before the long climb up into the hills and the distant trees. Another lamb, tethered. Also black. It was very nearly the full moon. Three days before a ceremony to Hecate would be held. He needed to see where those black lambs were taken.
He returned to the Vikings.
‘We need to go,’ said Galti, ‘it will be dark soon.’
‘Yes,’ said Loys, ‘but I have a service to ask of you.’
‘What is it?’
‘I need you to find me some smaller guards,’ he said.
24 The Price of Power
The shadows were wolves again, their long jaws stretching towards him as he slept. He heard their snuffling and grunting as he lay dream-bound in his bed.
And now the voices, the shrieking and the howling, the sensation of falling, the helpless descent into the blackness that the runes had hollowed in his mind. The bright symbols floated away from him leaving trails of silver as he plunged after them through the shadow world of his sleep.
Where are they, those needful symbols? Where are they? The voice sounded in his head.
‘They are in my heart. They are growing here.’
Whose are they, those needful symbols? Whose are they?
‘They are mine, for I paid the price for them.’
Who are you?
‘I am Karas, who gave the waters what they asked. Who are you?’
Your sister, dead by your treacherous hand.
Her face emerged from the darkness, bloated and bleached by madness, her eyes swollen and puffed like fungal growths, her hair lank and wet as seaweed.
The chamberlain seemed to fall forwards and there was light. The runes were there again, symbols growing inside him, the eight, feeding off him and sustaining him, clasping their tendrils around his heart like a tree curls its roots around a rock.
‘I took your life. I took your symbols. They are mine.’
You but borrowed them a little while. Come away to the waters from where they came.
‘They are mine, for I paid the price for them.’
Come away, descend as the spirits of the dead descend, travel through the great galleries of darkness.
‘I will not give what I paid so dearly to own.’
I am wet with the blood of gods. The vision put forward its hands, red and bloody.
‘Why are you here?’
This is the time. This is the needful time. The time of endings. She is calling the wolf. She is calling the wolf to you.
‘The goddess will reward me, not punish me. It cannot end, not while these things are mine.’
Listen, the black dogs are barking. The wolf is near. Can you not hear her call?
‘Lady of the crossroads, lady of moonlight.’ The chamberlain crossed himself, though he uttered a pagan charm.
The moon has been eaten.
‘I call on the sun.’
The sun chased away.
‘Lady who is three. The snake, the dog and the horse. Protect me here. Jesus, who is three, the father the son and the holy ghost, protect me here.’
Walk to the lower dark and never look back, though you hear the sound of footsteps and the barking of dogs.
‘Lady of walls.’
You have broken the walls.
‘Lady of gateways.’
You have passed through the gate.
‘Lady who returned from death. Christ who returned from death, help me here.’
She is clothed in her funeral jewels and waiting with her dogs, those guardians of the threshold.
‘Lady who protects from demons. Christ who cast the demons out.’
You have called the demons in. They that despise the light. You know where they dwell.
‘I will not come to you.’
The wolf will follow her. She is near you now.
‘Who is she?’
She who is three. The storm, the trap and the wolf maker.
‘No!’
The chamberlain sat upright in bed. The lamps in his room were lit, as they were always lit, but they only served to deepen the sense of encroaching darkness all around him.
From a walnut wood box at the side of his bed he took a pierced golden sphere, the size of skull, on a chain. He walked to the centre of the room and swung the ball around his head. The holes in the sphere caught the air and a howl like that of a miserable dog sounded, sour and low. The chamberlain muttered incantations into the night – psalms and spells.
‘The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide; neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.’
He tried to believe it was true, he would be forgiven, his grave sins would be absolved. But still he could not stop the prayer to the goddess coming.
‘Hecate, who triumphed over death, who rose in the black jewels of burial, I invoke you. Hecate, lady of the moon and of the shadows of the moon … I …’
He broke down, let the chain slacken and sank to his knees.
‘You lifted me up. You raised me high. Maintain me so.’
He stood and put the sphere back in the box, went to the window and looked out into the night. Flat black. No moon, no stars. All eaten by the enveloping cloud that sat over the city.
The chamberlain came back from the window, took up a cloth and dipped it into water in a copper basin to wipe his face. He felt sick. The magic sat uneasily in him. It was moon magic, he thought, Hecate’s magic, woman’s magic – magic that expressed itself in symbols that shone in his mind, that creaked and groaned like a hangman’s rope, that sucked and whispered like the sea, that smelled of spring and rebirth or of autumn and death. He rarely dared to use it but kept it damped down inside him with wine and herbs he got from his doctor. But still the symbols asked things of him. They wanted out. He was sure they had attacked the emperor. They fed on Karas’ distress, on his discomfort. The operation that had stopped Karas becoming a man had not made him a woman.
What if the scholar discovered the truth? His men told him Loys was not as incompetent as he had hoped. The chamberlain had concealed even the presence of the wolfman from him. But he would find out. Styliane, who he had brought with him from the slum, who he had protected and favoured with his magic and lifted up as a lady, had a sliver of her family’s magic inside her – she was working against him, all the reports said so.
The bond with his sister had severed on her thirteenth birthday. The full moon had risen in the sky and in her mind, and she had begun to suspect him. He let her talk and plot against him, for the sake of the guilt he felt, for the thread that connected him to human feelings of duty and love.
All those years, clinging to sanity, clinging to position and to power. Fighting the pull of the runes inside him; thankful for what they had brought him, fearful of what they would bring. When the rebel had risen up the runes had told him Basileios would fall to the usurper. That would have been the end of everything. So he had sweated and starved for a month and allowed the symbols inside him to travel forth to the rebel and strike him down as he rode forward. Such magic, once released, is not easily contained. The comet had come and now the black skies and the wolf.
Karas sat down on a couch and wiped his face again. The cloth came away with blood on it. A nosebleed. He felt disordered and vulnerable. There had to be a way out. There had to be a means, other than death, by which he could avert the fate that stalked him. He had run from the wolf for too long. Perhaps now it was time to seek it.
‘Fetch Isais.’
The runes stirred inside him. He needed to establish some sort of control, to at least sacrifice to the goddess who had set the symbols in his mind. The streets were dark enough and the moon – though invisible – was in the right position. He had to go to the hillside, to be among the people he had come from and to make the observances he hoped would buy him a little peace.
After a while there was a whisper at the door. The chamberlain opened it to the commander of the messengers, plainly dressed in dark soldier’s attire.
‘Tonight?’
‘Yes. Immediately.’
‘I will arrange it.’
Isais left.
The chamberlain went to a side room where he kept his clothes, including his campaign gear. It was plain and worn, and no one would think that odd. In the field he emulated the emperor in dressing like a common soldier. He took his sword and checked the folds of his padded jacket. Stuffed into a pocket in the interior was a mask of black cloth – like the Arabs wore in the desert – with no more than slits for eyes. He picked up a tight-fitting desert hood, white to reflect the sun and proof against grit and sand. He pulled his horse cloak around him.
The door opened; there was no knock.
Two men accompanied Isais, again dressed plainly as guards.
‘The way is clear,’ Isais said.
The chamberlain lowered his eyes in acknowledgement and walked out of his chamber, down to a room where there was a secret staircase that led to the bowels of the palace and from there out through the kitchens to a back door to the outside. They encountered no one, Isais as good as his word. The chamberlain put on the desert hood and stepped out into the street. From here it was two hours to the hillside, so they would have to move fast.
25 A Sacrifice
Galti got Loys what he wanted by the second day of waiting – four good Varangians who were not giants and so didn’t stand out among the Greeks. They would never pass for natives of the city close up but, at a distance and in dim light, they’d invite no attention. The deal was done on a promise and an oath in Norse – the Vikings said Loys spoke their tongue so he would know the value of a vow. The Vikings wore their sea cloaks, stained and eaten by salt, and covered their heads against the rain with close-fitting caps or cowls. It was dark and the weather miserable. They would pass well enough, thought Loys.
‘Chance of a scrap?’ said one – a stocky youth, nearly a man, handsome but for his missing teeth. His name was Vandrad.
‘Yes, but we need to be careful,’ said Loys. ‘We’re going to watch one of the Greeks’ rituals. I want to kidnap one of them and we may have to follow him back into his camp to do it.’
He quickly made his way up the hill, the men following him. All the black lambs had gone from the camp. Up on the hillside torches floated in the murk – nine or ten ascending in the distance.
‘There,’ he said.
The men trudged on over the sucking ground. The torches were very faint and Loys had no certainty they belonged to the people he sought. But he recalled what he had read – that the ceremonies of the goddess were often conducted by torchlight. They were planned with strict attention to detail, for fear of invoking the goddess’s anger.
The night was black. All perspective was gone: the fires and lamps of the camp seemed to hang in space, glowing like odd moons. One of the Varangians took a torch as he passed a tent and no one came out to complain that he had. Ahead the lights they followed were will-o’-the-wisps. Loys almost laughed to himself. He’d been worried about being recognised; they would be practically invisible in the gloom.
From ahead he heard a keyless grumble: dogs howling and moaning on the hill – a lot of dogs.
Loys lost sight of the torches and began to think they had taken a wrong turn, but a track was under their feet and they stuck to that. It was impossible to judge how far they had gone. Only the ground beneath his feet told Loys he was not moving through a murky ocean and he almost imagined sea serpents looming from the mist, the blind grey monsters of childish nightmares.
The going became steep. They still saw no lights ahead but, denied another reference, they headed towards the sound of the dogs. Then they crested a ridge. Lights, lots of lights. Other torches joined those they had followed, coming up a track from another side of the city, while others still descended out of the night.
‘On,’ said Loys.
The Varangian nearest smiled at him. ‘Nair,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The world of the dead,’ said a voice at his shoulder.
Now they climbed over rocks – big boulders. It took all Loys’ concentration not to slip and break an ankle. The howling and grumbling of the dogs became louder, and under it they heard a murmur of conversation. People were assembling.
Loys kept going, the Varangians at his back. Something moved by his side. A small dog was leaping from rock to rock and, in doing so, brushed his hand.
‘One torch extinguished. We need twenty-seven; there are twenty-eight,’ said a voice. Loys took the Varangian’s torch and threw it down into a cleft between the rocks.
‘Start!’ Another voice, from Loys’ right.
‘Why are you here?’ The voice was strong and commanding and Loys almost felt inclined to answer it.
‘To stand at the gateway of death,’ forty or fifty unseen speakers replied.
‘Why do you stand at the gateway of death?’
‘To offer homage to the lady of the gateway.’
‘What do you seek for this homage?’
‘Blessing and protection from evil.’
‘She that is Propulaia.’
‘Standing before the gate.’
‘She that is Chthonia.’
‘Lady of the earth, the lower earth and the dark places of the earth.’
‘She that is Apotropaia.’
‘Protector and guardian.’
‘Accept our sacrifice and hear our prayer.’
A lamb’s bleat turned to a shriek. The dogs went wild, barking, baying and howling. Still Loys saw very little beyond the soft glow of the torches.
A chant pulsed through the mist. Loys gripped his knife. The voices surrounded him.
‘Up out of darkness and subvert all things
With aimless plans, I will call and you may hear
My holy words since terrible destiny
Is ever subject to you. Thrice bound goddess,
Set free yourself, come raging
Plunged in darkness with sorrows fresh,
Grim-eyed, shrill-screaming.
Come.’
Loys shivered. The chant broke into many separate choruses, gabbling on all sides.
‘In my power I hold you.’
‘Your thrice-locked door.’
‘Her burning hearth, her shadow.’
‘One morsel of flesh.’
‘Blood of a turtledove.’
‘Hair of a virgin cow.’
‘The bond of all necessity is sundered
And the sun’s light is hidden.’
It was a cacophony. Torches flashed; people stamped and dogs howled.
‘We need to capture one of them,’ said Loys to the Varangian nearest to him. He needed to ask some questions.
‘Our sort of work. Wait until they separate. If one goes off on his own we’ll have him.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘We’ll have him anyway.’
The ceremony continued, with singing and chanting and invocations to the lady of the moon, she that is three, the lady of the cypress, warden of graves, lady of the yew, filler of graves, lady of the mandrake whose birthplace is the grave.
More flames flared. Loys guessed they were burning branches held up high.
Then there was shouting and moaning and a voice cried out loudly, ‘Do not drive these demons on to us, we who have evoked your displeasure. Three black lambs have been sacrificed, as you require, three times nine torche
s, as you require; the invocations have been observed, the three directions faced and the three names called. Do not abandon us.’
A word came from all around that sounded very much like ‘Amen’ and the torches began to move away.
‘We’ll take the last to leave,’ said Loys.
‘If only to get their light,’ said Vandrad. The fog was truly freakish – Loys could see no more than five paces ahead.
The torches filed away, dark figures passing them clambering over the rocks. As careful to conceal their own identity as to demonstrate their lack of curiosity in that of others, none paused to look at the Varangians.
Only one or two torches remained, up near where the ceremony been conducted.
Loys heard voices through the still air.
‘We need to open the gate again.’
‘Not yet. I stepped through it years ago. That way is a hard one and I will not walk it while there are alternatives.’
‘But the comet, the sky, these deaths. You need to look for an answer.’
‘I can scarcely hold what I have inside me. You don’t know how it costs me – what might be asked.’
‘If you went within you might rid yourself of the magic. It is that which causes these abominations to afflict us.’
‘I do not know. I do not know.’
‘Could the Christians be right? Could this be the end of the world?’
‘Or the Norsemen or the Arabs. They both seem to agree a one-eyed god must emerge, and we haven’t seen him yet.’
‘I’m glad you can joke about it, sir.’
‘I don’t joke. Who knows what is happening?’
‘You have taken from the goddess; now she wants something back.’
Lord of Slaughter Page 18