Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  “Yes, I see.”

  Amairgen said softly. “You know that we are constrained to return?”

  “I don’t —”

  “And that in no circumstances other than death or mutilation are we permitted to remain in whatever world we may find beyond the Time Curtain?”

  Flynn said, “I know it.” And thought: damn! Why is my voice sounding too loud? He said again, “Yes, I do know. I understand.” But he thought that Amairgen looked at him rather searchingly, as if he knew very well that Flynn’s whole mind and soul and body had often yearned to go back, to find the blue and green mists. Had someone truly written that of Tara? But it is so familiar, thought Flynn, and was not surprised to find it so.

  Amairgen lifted the hand that bore the great carved ring. “The symbol of the Leader,” he said. “To be given to my son if I should have one, or to whomever I may appoint if I do not.” Again there was that disconcerting study, and Flynn thought: I believe I know what he is thinking. And at once knew a shaft of panic. Oh, no, I don’t want that … Or do I? And he looked afresh at the silent watchers with their shadowed faces, and he felt again the faint, far-off stir of music that he had always felt lay hidden just beyond hearing on this hill. To control such a Secret; said his mind … To lead these men who guard what is surely the greatest and most awful Secret that ever man had to guard …

  Amairgen spoke in a brisker tone, “Well, we must leave at daybreak, I think. You should dress warmly but plainly, for we dare not call attention to ourselves on this side of the Time Curtain, or beyond it. And you should bring a weapon of some kind — something easy to carry but capable of defending you.”

  Weapons were almost totally unknown in Tugaim, or anywhere else, for that matter, for the Letheans had bequeathed a strong and deeply rooted aversion to violence. But Flynn thought that of course Amairgen was right. A knife of some kind perhaps? A wood axe? And felt amusement, for was he to undertake the most perilous journey imaginable armed with a bread knife? But, “Yes,” he said again. “Yes, I understand.” And paused, and waited.

  In the dim light, Amairgen watched him. “Tell me,” said Flynn at length, “where is it we go; to break through the Time Curtain?”

  Amairgen paused, as if reluctant to speak. “It is not far,” he said. “The boundaries of Tugaim.

  “To the House of Mutants. To the Gealtacht.”

  *

  In the cold dawn light, Amairgen was very much younger than Flynn had thought. He was of medium height, fair, grey-eyed and slender. Even so, Flynn thought he would be a worthy ally and a dangerous opponent.

  Amairgen smiled. He said, “You are right, Flynn. I can fight if I have to.”

  Flynn turned to look. “You knew my thoughts?” This was so interesting as to be compelling. It was almost as compelling as what lay ahead.

  “Yes. I have a little — a very little — of what is called the Samhailt. The gift — or the curse — of Tara.” He glanced at Flynn. “That is how I knew you spoke the truth. I knew you had kept faith and not betrayed the Secret. The Leaders of the Council of Keepers must always possess the Samhailt. I think you possess it yourself, a little.” And then, as Flynn did not answer, Amairgen said gently, “Flynn. Don’t be surprised or frightened by what is ahead, you and I are entering other worlds: ancient worlds. Tell me, do you think your Joanna is still alive?”

  “Yes,” said Flynn.

  “Ah,” said Amairgen, and Flynn thought: well at least he understands.

  “Of course I understand,” said Amairgen, and grinned.

  Flynn recovered himself enough to say, “It’s a difficult thing to possess at times.”

  “It is.” Amairgen pointed to the hill in front of them. “The Gealtacht.”

  “Why do we have to come here?”

  Amairgen stood for a moment, surveying the great grim building far above them. “Because,” he said, “the Gealtacht is a place of asylum for the Mutants. But you know that, of course. Mutants are able to control the Lands. They have within them the same taint and the same damage that the Glowing Lands have: the paw mark of the Apocalypse who tore the Time Curtain. They are able to strengthen the doorway that will lead us back to the Court of Tara. You could not go through it, Flynn, not by yourself, because you had not sufficient power. Perhaps your Joanna possesses some strange power we do not know. Perhaps …”

  He stopped and Flynn said, “Yes?”

  “Nothing. Only a legend I once heard …”

  “Tell me.”

  “The return of the High Queen,” said Amairgen in a whisper. “She would come from the future. But, no, it cannot be so. Joanna simply stumbled across the Time Curtain. In some way she parted it.

  “The Mutants have a great power, you see. They also can part the Time Curtain and allow us to go through.

  “And so we shall have to chain one of them and take him to Tara’s Hill and force him to draw aside the Time Curtain.”

  *

  The climb to the Gealtacht was longer and more arduous than Flynn had expected. The hill was more barren than anything he had ever seen in Tugaim. The effects of Devastation? Or simply that this was a place so utterly abandoned by men that the land had lost heart. Ridiculous! said Flynn to himself, but the feeling of a desolation so total, a loneliness so dreadful, persisted.

  The track was narrow and difficult, here and there it was rutted by some great upheaval.

  “It is hardly ever used,” said Amairgen. “Once you are inside the Gealtacht, you are not expected ever to come out. There are no recorded instances of anyone ever having done so.”

  Several times on the upward climb, Flynn stumbled and each time Amairgen was there with a hand outstretched to catch him. As they climbed higher, and the air became colder, Flynn found himself doing the same, anticipating Amairgen’s missteps.

  “The Samhailt?” he said, grinning.

  “Of course. A difficult possession, but useful at a time like this. Without it, I should have been at the foot of that ravine.”

  But even with such good company, Flynn, found the hill rather menacing. It was a long way from the warmth and the security of Tugaim, of course; there was a brooding air that chilled his inmost thoughts. To be brought up here, to know from the beginning that you were deformed, maimed, that you were not like others, and must be shut away in this terrible prison. Had they intelligence, these Mutants? Were they able to feel pain at their outcast state?

  “Oh yes,” said Amairgen. “That is the pity of it. But it is thought that they are made quite comfortable up here.”

  As they climbed even higher, Flynn found himself remembering that even today there were bands of fierce greedy men who would not work their own lands, but preferred to roam the hillsides and the forests, preying on solitary travellers, occasionally making raids on the more isolated farmhouses. To Flynn, violence was a totally abhorrent concept, and he thought it was to most of Tugaim. Even so, he recognised that it was not so for everyone. Violence had survived in the world. “The old order changeth not …” Where had he heard of, read, or dreamed that?

  They stopped to break their fast when the sun was high. “For,” said Amairgen, “it won’t help if we arrive fainting from hunger and speechless from fatigue. Did you bring food? Oh good. Shall we share what we have?”

  It was a curious meal they ate together, sheltering from the cold, thin wind in the lee of some boulders, the bulk of the Gealtacht still far above them. Flynn looked up at it, and thought there was an air of patience about it, and an air of watchfulness. He thought it was looking down on Tugaim, waiting until its next victims were brought to it. He shook his head to clear the thoughts, and turned to unpack the food made up in the farmhouse early that morning.

  “Cold chicken is it?” said Amairgen. “Excellent. And I have pigeon pie and potted mushrooms.”

  Flynn had brought fruit as well; crisp apples and velvet-skinned plums from the orchard. There were honey cakes and a small flask of the rich damson wine which Flynn’s mother had alw
ays brewed, and which Flynn, remembering only a shadowy, rather beautiful lady, always thought tasted of happiness and sadness in equal portions.

  “Life is happiness and sadness both,” said Amairgen. “But not always in equal portions.” And then he brushed the crumbs from his cloak and set about packing away the remains of their food and corking the wine flask, so that Flynn thought Amairgen himself was compounded of curiously unequal portions.

  The sun had reached its zenith and was moving downwards over the Mountains of the Morning as they neared the Gealtacht. Flynn shivered in the cold, raw air, thinking that few living things would ever come here. But no, here were tracks of some kind of animal; there against the hill face was the nest of some flying creature, too large for a hawk, too small for an eagle. He turned up his collar against the cold, and thought: even like this, even with the afternoon sun on it, the Gealtacht is a terrible place. How must it be to be up here at night, perhaps without even the light from the moon; to be close to the creatures inside the House, as cut off from the light as they were from the rest of humanity?

  There was a scent of hawthorn and moss now, and the walls of the Gealtacht were rearing up against the sky. High walls. “Oh yes, they have to be high,” said Amairgen.

  “Are they — the Mutants — dangerous?”

  “Some of them.”

  Even so, there were splashes of life and colour against the walls; gentians and star flowers and rowan. Rowan, the age-old protection against witches … But how near to the house itself did it grow?

  Before them were the iron gates that shut away the Gealtacht, the House of Mutants, from the rest of the world. The gates were locked, secured with immense iron padlocks, and lined with sheets of steel, so that no one could look in. And no one could look out …

  “Over the wall,” said Amairgen. “You first. I’ll follow.”

  *

  The Brave New World created by the Great Devastation did not admit (or not often) to flaws or taints. Devastation had been a purging, said the survivors determinedly; it had been tragic and terrible, but it had swept away all of the old imperfections and all of the old weaknesses; only the strong had come through, and it was the strong who would rebuild the world.

  But not even those remarkable men and women who had lived through the Apocalypse’s reign of terror and pain could hide the dreadful and pitiable creatures who had been directly touched by the Apocalypse’s fire.

  To begin with, they did not want to hide them. When the world settled, and the fires cooled, there had been a wave of love and friendship so tremendous that the scarred and the deformed had not mattered. The world was scarred and deformed, said the survivors staunchly; people must live and work side by side, never mind that some were hurt and mutilated. No one must hide, or shudder away from the poor maimed creatures who had borne the brunt.

  But the Mutants did not conform. They did not slot into this splendid new world that was so carefully and so eagerly being rebuilt. They were bitter and withdrawn: “Understandably so,” said the survivors, still buoyed up by the marvellous new feeling that was sweeping mankind, stimulated by the great task ahead.

  But the Mutants suffered; they were prone to sickness, vomiting and purging. They sometimes rolled in agony on the floor from the pains in their bones and organs. They could not be expected to work, and they could not really be left alone. No one had any palliatives to give, but everyone agreed that they must be gently treated, made as comfortable as possible. However much pity there might be for the damaged, the world must somehow struggle back into the light; this new wonderful sense of love and friendship must not be lost. It must be cherished and let to grow. It was not that they had not time to spare on the Mutants, said the survivors firmly, or that they had not pity for them, it was simply a question of practicalities. It was, in fact, a little irritating to have to break off to tend the Mutants when there was so much else to be done. Nobody came out and said so, but the Mutants were rather a problem. They were certainly a distraction.

  The Houses were opened. People who had medical knowledge left from the old days ventured their services. It was exactly like the old wars, the really old ones. The Crimea had it been? And the First World War? Distant memories, ancient history, and really rather milk-and-water battles to people who had come through days and nights and weeks of terror. Even so, the Houses, the volunteers, provided a solution to the problem of the Mutants. They could be put together; there were enough old infirmaries still standing, enough old asylums. Built for exactly these purposes, said the survivors, pleased. The Mutants would be cared for. It need not be a problem.

  The problem had not been the original Mutants.

  It had been the Mutants’ descendants.

  *

  “They ought not have been allowed to breed,” said Amairgen, jumping down beside Flynn into the gardens of the House. “But no one guessed … And it seemed kindly to give them the comfort of sexual release if they wanted it.”

  The comfort of sexual release, so tolerantly bestowed, had very nearly destroyed the splendid new sense of love in the world.

  “They bred from one another,” said Amairgen, pausing in the still afternoon, his eyes surveying the great House ahead of the trees. “And they bred the most dreadful travesties of humanity.”

  The first Mutants, pitiable and maimed, had been possible to cope with; the survivors had been able to feel kindly towards them, and the people who tended them had been able to bring genuine compassion to their task. Wasn’t everyone struggling to live again, and wasn’t it only the luck of the draw that some were forever tainted and some left whole? They dug deeply into the old knowledge for remedies: draughts to halt the terrible vomiting and purging; painkilling potions to dilute the bone agony of their charges; cooling lotions to help the dreadful weeping abscesses that broke out on the scorched skins. And there were what were called remissions; times when the Mutants could enjoy life a little, eat normal foods, carry on conversations … feel sexual arousal.

  They were tended and allowed to do whatever they wished. Poor creatures, said those who had the care of them. Surely one could spare time and compassion on them. It would only be for a few years anyway.

  It was not for a few years at all. The Mutants could somehow still breed. “Mankind fighting for re-birth,” said the survivors sagely. But the women brought forth creatures such as no one could have imagined.

  “Many were near-monsters,” said Amairgen, one hand on Flynn’s arm; so alert and so watchful that Flynn thought he might almost be sniffing the air.

  “And so the Mutant strain was strengthened. Just as close cousins have never been supposed to breed from one another if there is any weakness that may be doubled, so the Mutant strain was made far worse than anyone could have foreseen. Since those days, we have had the Kin Book which must be strictly kept, and in which all Mutants born must be registered. Not,” said Amairgen, “that so many are born now, but it still occurs occasionally.”

  “But people do not always admit to having produced a Mutant. They conceal, they send the child away to where the laws are not so strictly upheld.”

  Amairgen replied “Of course they do. Human nature has not changed so very much despite Devastation, Flynn.”

  The grounds of the Gealtacht were overgrown, but there were attempts at grassy banks and a few flower beds. There were dark shrubberies and laurel bushes, and towering oak and beech trees.

  “Sheltered,” said Amairgen. “Yes, I believe these are from the days before Devastation. Yes, for that tree must be at least two hundred years old, if not more. And the house itself escaped the worst of the fires.”

  It was curious and slightly eerie to see growing things which were largely unknown in Ireland now. Flynn stared at the immense trees, their branches interlacing overhead, making patterns against the sky, and thought: what did they do, our ancestors, to unleash on the world so great a power that it could destroy things like this? In a way, it was like entering a part of the past; Flynn thought t
hat here was a world within a world; the Gealtacht did not need Tugaim, it did not need any of the outside world. It was complete in itself, and once the iron doors had clanged shut, escape from the House would be impossible.

  They approached the building through a thick shrubbery, avoiding the gravel paths. Flynn thought that despite the bleak air, despite the deserted grounds, someone did tend the gardens a little. The lawns were roughly cut, the gravel paths had at some time been raked. The bushes were clipped into a kind of order.

  Seen at closer range, the house looked as if it might be deserted. Windows were barred, and there was no sign of life anywhere. But …

  “Look,” said Amairgen softly. “Smoke from the chimneys.”

  “Yes. And a smell of cooking. That would be the kitchen section.”

  It was difficult to escape the feeling of hidden watchers, of unseen eyes peering from the topmost windows, and of calculations being made. Another two? Oh, for sure we can house them. There are cells, there are windowless prisons with chains and locked doors. Once inside the Gealtacht they will never get out. Terrible thoughts. How many poor maimed creatures, damaged from the scorching fires, had been brought here and had those thoughts?

  Amairgen found a side door, nearly covered by a thick mat of ivy, but unlocked. He turned to Flynn and placed a finger on his lips. Flynn nodded. They did not dare to be caught by those who had the care of the Mutants; they could not possibly explain their mission.