by Sarah Rayne
Tybion had understood; he had listened carefully, and he knew what they had to do. Go into the wine shop, quite casually and ordinarily, and then fall into conversation with Medoc’s people. Ply them with wine. And then somehow find out as much as they could about Medoc’s plans.
“Wine’s a great tongue loosener,” Fergus had said, grinning.
But now, threading his way carefully to a table in the wine shop in Fergus’s wake, Tybion knew that the brief lightheartedness had fallen from Fergus, and that Fergus was feeling an immense weight, the burden of the Queen’s exile and the loss of Tara. For a brief moment, Tybion felt it as well, a terrible, dragging despair, and a deep wrenching pain.
For Tara, the Shining Citadel, is in the hands of the Dark Lords, and Medoc has quenched its light, perhaps forever …
Tybion had known — they had all known — that Fergus loved Ireland and that he would give his life for Ireland if he had to, but it was disconcerting to suddenly feel it like this. It is as if Fergus is no longer whole, thought Tybion.
He would have liked to have told Fergus that he shared the pain and the sense of loss, but it might be presumptuous. And they must be casual and very offhand with the people here, even though what was ahead might affect the whole history of Ireland. I hope I can do this, thought Tybion. I do hope I can. But the idea of affecting Ireland’s history was as stirring as it was terrifying, and Tybion managed to look round the crowded smoky wine shop quite normally.
Fergus had called for a flagon of wine and exchanged grins with one of the serving girls, and now he indicated a small table near the window and led Tybion across to it. Tybion, who had not actually drunk wine very often, sat down and sipped cautiously, looking about him.
And Medoc’s creatures were here. Tybion saw and sensed and acknowledged them, and felt his stomach lurch. It brought Medoc abruptly closer to see his creatures drinking wine, laughing, and playing dice. Ireland is becoming overrun with these terrible evil beings, thought Tybion.
Medoc’s creatures occupied three of the tables. At the distant window table at least half a dozen of them were engrossed in some kind of game with dice, and three more were leaning on the high table where the great wine casks were stored, laughing with one of the serving girls. Tybion sat quietly watching and listening, absorbing the sights and the scents and the sounds of this place and, little by little, he became aware of narrow sly eyes, and of greedy talonlike hands that were not quite claws, but that were certainly not human hands, curling and uncurling.
Medoc’s creatures were watching them. Medoc’s jackals were listening to them. And with that thought came the sudden memory, half-buried, of Ireland’s dark history; of the race of rodent creatures created by an evil sorcerer many centuries earlier by mating rats and jackals and weasels with humans, and producing creatures neither quite human nor quite rodent, but a nightmarish blend of the two.
These are descendants of those people, thought Tybion with horror. Descendants of the rodent armies of the Dark Ireland. And he remembered, in the same moment, that other sorcery; the gentle strong Enchantment of the Beastline, spun at the beginning of Ireland’s history, that had allowed the Royal Houses of Ireland to lie with the Wolves of Tara, and that had resulted in the beautiful wild Wolfkings and Queens. He remembered that the High Queen herself was a direct descendant of the first Wolfkings, and he saw these slit-eyed mean-mouthed creatures as a terrible travesty of the Royal House.
Fergus had allowed his eyes to rove in leisurely fashion around the room and then come to rest on the single creature at the adjoining table. Like Tybion he saw at once the mixed ancestry, the faint traces of rodent blood, and like Tybion, he knew of the dark evil sorcery that had created that line. There is a slithery deceitful look, thought Fergus, who disliked rats intensely, a sly vicious look. If I obeyed my instincts I should fall on this filth and tear it limb from limb, and purge Ireland of Medoc’s tainted armies for ever.
But he smiled offhandedly at the lone wine-drinker, and lifted his glass of wine in vague amity, and saw Tybion do the same, and was pleased with Tybion, who was behaving exactly as he ought; and presently, the creature nodded in return.
“The wine shop is crowded tonight,” said Fergus, to Tybion, and Tybion heard that he was slurring his words slightly. “But of course,” said Fergus, “people are probably marking the newest victim of the Master.”
There was a brief silence, and Tybion, hardly daring to look, saw the narrow eyes of the next table’s lone occupant take on a wary gleam. He does not trust us, thought Tybion, and at once felt Fergus’s response: No, not yet …
“Can’t you always tell,” said Fergus, aloud, “when the Master has notched up another victory against the enemy.” He leaned back in his chair, apparently wholly at ease, the fingers of one hand curled negligently around the stem of his wine glass, and fixed the rat creature with a rather vapid smile. Tybion saw the rat creature narrow its eyes again, as if assessing Fergus.
“Another heart for Crom Croich,” Fergus said in a cheerful, let’s-celebrate voice.
Tybion said carefully, “I suppose we can be sure of that, can we?”
“The Conablaiche would not return empty-handed,” Fergus said, and lifted his hand to the serving girl for more wine.
“And a glass for my friend there,” he said. “No man should celebrate alone.” He looked lazily across to the rat creature. “Join us, sir,” he said. And then, without waiting, “Bring him a flask of your best wine, my dear,” he said.
Medoc’s servant regarded Fergus for a moment, and although his eyes did not quite show red, Tybion thought they nearly did. But he said, “Celebrate?”
Fergus leaned forward, with the overeager mien of the wine-imbiber. “The Conablaiche,” he said, stumbling a little over the word now. “Is it not walking?” He leaned back in his chair again and raised his glass. “To Crom Croich,” he said loudly. “To the return of the great god-idol of Ireland.” Tybion held his breath and waited, and after a moment, the rat creature said, “You are generous to a stranger. I shall be glad to take wine with you.”
Fergus waited until the wine was brought and then said, “We drink to the Conablaiche, my friend!” He tilted his chair back and raised his glass yet again.
“Indeed?”
Fergus crashed the chair down to the floor and sprawled forward on the table. “Let us be frank. People who are in the service of the Master are not truly strangers. Hey?” He turned to Tybion as if for confirmation, and Tybion said, “My father believed it was a wise army that knew its own people,” and was glad to hear that his voice was quite steady.
“There are many loyalties on Innisfree and many armies,” said the rat creature, noncommittally, but he took the wine.
“To Medoc,” said Fergus, apparently not hearing this. And then, lifting his eyes in an apparent attempt to focus, “Forgive me — Have I misread? I see that I have.” He looked at Tybion, as if begging for help, and Tybion said severely, “You have allowed the wine to uncurb your tongue, sir.”
“And I have said too much,” said Fergus, shaking his head. “Sir, please to pardon me, and my companion and I will bid you farewell.” He made as if to get up and stumbled so that Tybion put out a hand. “My tongue betrays me,” said Fergus. “It is the fault of the wine, I fear.”
“Your tongue is certainly loose,” said Medoc’s servant, frowning. “And in times of war, it is as well to be careful.” Fergus sat down again and smiled ingenuously. “I am the most careful of all the Master’s servants,” he said.
“The Master?”
“Medoc,” said Fergus, in surprise, as if this ought to have been obvious. He tipped wine into all the glasses with a generous hand, and rested both elbows on the table. Enunciating with extreme care, he said, “I am Medoc’s loyallest servant. I know all about Medoc and his plans.”
“Indeed?”
“Medoc,” said Fergus, in a patronising I-know-more-than-you tone, “has woken the Conablaiche. Did you know that?”
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The rat creature said, “Medoc would do well to beware of the Conablaiche,” and then glanced over his shoulder as if fearful of being heard.
“Powerful,” said Fergus, shaking his head. “A powerful being, the Conablaiche.”
“If we all said what we knew about the Conablaiche, Medoc would have terror in his ranks,” said the rat creature.
“I have often thought that,” said Fergus, and Tybion, feeling that it was time he made a contribution, said, almost at random, “I heard that the Conablaiche had escaped again.”
At once a look of pure terror came into the rat creature’s eyes. He leaned forward, and Fergus and Tybion both saw the long upper lip and the sloping chin. And I believe, thought Tybion in horrified fascination, that his ears are pointed …
“I beg you,” he said, “I beg you not to say that aloud.”
“But it is true?” said Tybion.
“Well, of course it is true,” said the rat creature crossly. “Everyone who is the least bit close to Medoc knows what happened.” He eyed them both, rather pityingly, as if he might be thinking, Well, you two are not so very high in Medoc’s service after all!
“We all knew how the Conablaiche broke away,” said Tybion.
“Oh, everyone knows it now,” said the rat creature impatiently. “And for all that Medoc has tried to keep it a secret, most people believe it rode in the Time Chariot of Fael-Inis.” He glanced at Fergus, and then leaned forward. “But how many people know what happened then?” he said, and nodded, half to himself.
“People tell so many stories,” said Tybion, half apologetically, and at his side, Fergus slumped back in his chair, as if overtaken by the wine.
“Oh, everyone has a different one,” agreed the rat creature. “But I was there when it happened, you know.”
“Were you really?”
“I was there when it came swaggering back to Medoc,” he said. “When it was summoned to Tara, and when it stood before Medoc’s Throne in the Sun Chamber and told of how it had tricked Fael-Inis.”
“Yes?”
“It rode in Fael-Inis’s Chariot,” said the rat creature, and Tybion felt the beginnings of a new horror prickle his skin. He waited, but Fergus said, half to himself, “Medoc’s Throne in the Sun Chamber,” and the rat creature looked sharply at him, and said, “The ancient Throne of the accursed Wolfkings, friend. Medoc’s Throne.”
“I had forgotten for the moment,” said Fergus, quite humbly, but Tybion had heard the flare of anger.
“Perhaps you have not been inside Tara,” said the rat creature condescendingly.
“Perhaps not. But you were saying …” Fergus tipped the wine flagon up again. “You saw the Conablaiche and Medoc.”
“It went into the Far Future,” said the rat creature, his eyes suddenly far away. Tybion stealthily tipped in the rest of the wine.
“It went into the Future,” said the rat creature. “Although whether it was truly in the Chariot, we do not know.”
“And Fael-Inis has never yet been tricked,” said Fergus softly. “Go on.”
“It walked in the world of the Future,” the rat creature said, and reached for the wine again. Fergus and Tybion received the impression that he had forgotten their presence.
“It walked amongst the creatures of the worlds yet to be born,” he said, and stopped, and raised his eyes to them, red-glinting and cruel. Tybion felt a bolt of sudden fear from Fergus, but he stayed where he was.
The rat creature lifted the wine again, and the dark red glow cast eerie shadows across his face.
“It was not as the stealer of living hearts it travelled to the Future,” he said softly, “but as something different.”
“Yes?”
“When it went into the Future, the Conablaiche went in its aspect of Plague,” said Medoc’s servant, and he smiled at them. “It set in motion the ancient and terrible prophecy.
“It unleashed the First of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the world.”
*
“What did he mean? Fergus, what did he mean?” Tybion stood in the thin moonlight outside the wine shop and faced Fergus, and barely noticed that he had used the Fiana Captain’s name so abruptly and so fiercely.
Fergus was staring ahead of him, and Tybion thought that Fergus was not really seeing him. And then Fergus said, very softly, “We know of the coming of the Apocalypse. We know a great deal about it, for the stories have come back to us with the Time Travellers. We believe that the people of the Future knew of the Apocalypse’s advent long before it came riding into the world, for it is in the literature and the folklore and the predictions of every century.”
He stopped, and Tybion said in a voice of extreme horror, “That — Medoc’s creature said something about a prophecy.”
“Yes. And although,” said Fergus, smiling rather bitterly, “the prophecies were ancient when the Apocalypse walked, for us they are still to be written.
“But our descendants knew the prophecies well,” said Fergus. “They knew of the harbingers that would precede the Apocalypse. They knew of the auguries and the warnings. They knew of the entities that would come into the world to prepare the way for the Apocalypse.” He stopped again, and Tybion, horrified, said in a whisper, “The Four Horsemen. That is what that creature meant.”
“Yes,” said Fergus. “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, sometimes called the Four Heralds.” And without in the least altering his voice, he quoted the words that had been ancient when the Apocalypse had entered the world, but which had not yet been written:
“And Four Heralds shall come into the world to announce the Beast Apocalypse … They shall stalk the earth and lay it waste in their several ways, and after their coming the skies shall darken and the seas shall boil and the world shall burn for fifty days and fifty nights … then shall the Apocalypse ride into the world …’”
“Four Heralds,” Fergus said. “And we know the names of those Four Heralds, for their legend also has come back to us with the Time Travellers.” He looked at Tybion, and Tybion said,
“‘There shall be Four Heralds who shall come into the worldy and each shall have a namey and these names shall be War, Plague, Famine, and Death …’” He stopped, and Fergus picked up the words.
“‘And the first of these Heralds shall be Plague …’”
“Plague,” said Fergus, his eyes dark in the moonlight. “By allowing Medoc to reign and to awake the Conablaiche, we have been responsible for allowing the creature to spill its filth into the Future.” He stared at Tybion, his eyes brilliant now. “When the Conablaiche went into the Future, it took with it the seeds of destruction and death. It set in motion the prophecy of the ages.”
War, Plague, Famine, and Death … And the first of these shall be Plague …
“We have sent the first Herald into the Future, Tybion!” Fergus said, and now the agony blazed from his eyes. “It was not our descendants who burned the world and destroyed civilization.
“It was us!”
CHAPTER THREE
Travelling to the mainland, after the quiet of Innis-free, awoke something in Fergus that he had almost forgotten he possessed. Here was life and vigour and interest. Yes, and hope. As he walked through the teeming streets, confidence poured into him, and his spirits lifted. I am coming alive again. I am regaining strength. I shall succeed.
But I shall hate the means by which I shall succeed …
The money lenders. The strange, rather secret people who had come to Ireland from the East, and who lived and worked and studied in Ireland, but who were shunned and rather feared. They possessed immense wealth, and they would bargain with the goldsmiths and the silversmiths for those who sought their help. They were said to be clever and subtle and sometimes cruel, and they were distrusted. But only with the money lenders’ help could the exiled Court pay the sorcerers to take them to the Future and turn back the Conablaiche’s malevolence.
There is no other way, thought Fergus.
T
he Street of Money Lenders was narrow and long. The houses were very old. Fergus thought they must have been built during the Golden Age of Cormac’s reign, and he thought that something of that Age’s prosperity lingered in the tall, rather beautiful buildings.
The houses were high and overhanging, so that you felt as if they might topple over onto you. Signs, elegantly lettered, hung outside some of the buildings, and small, dusky-skinned boys ran everywhere, taking messages, collecting gold, carrying bonds. There were warehouses and gold and silversmiths; shops that sold carved jewellery and amulets and trinkets. Fergus thought the work had an Eastern look, and remembered that the money lenders were thought to be nearly all Tyrian by origin; and he was intrigued, for little was known of the Tyrians who had come to Ireland from the East, bringing with them their secrets and their odd, barbaric religions.
He moved on, seeking one of the smaller houses — thinking he might do better with a less impersonal place, marking out one narrow, several-storied building — “More or less at random,” he said afterwards.
There was a sign outside proclaiming the owner’s trade, and there were archways over the doors. Fergus pushed open the door and, confronted by twisting stairs, went cautiously up.
*
The man seated at the wide table in the room overlooking the street was very much younger than Fergus had expected. He was dark and thin-faced and sardonic looking. But his eyes were intelligent and his mouth was fastidious and sensitive. He was working at some papers, and he was surrounded by sheaves of documents and by money scales, and what looked like chunks of raw gold, and his room was the untidiest Fergus had ever seen.