by Sarah Rayne
Lugh said, as if from a great distance, “There is one thing I do not understand.”
“Well?”
Summoning his resources, and certainly summoning his courage, Lugh said, “This child. This Wolfprince —”
“Yes?”
“Who were its parents?”
Medoc smiled the cruel, thin smile again. “Oh, Sir Long-hand,” he said softly, “can you not guess? Were you not at Court seven years ago when the Bright Palace rocked with the whispers of the great and terrible scandal? Do you not remember the stories that were told behind closed doors, and the speculations that took place behind hands? Were you not yourself instrumental in bringing to light a shocking truth?” said Medoc.
“Seven years ago, the creature you know as the Wolf-queen loved and lay with her Captain of the Fiana. And as a result bore him, in great secrecy, a son.
“It is that child who is Ireland’s Lost Prince. It is that child who must be found and slain.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For a very long time, Fergus had been aware of a change inside the Prison of Hostages. He thought that you could argue that where there is no substance, there cannot be change; where there is nothing but the endless pure light, a man cannot be aware of things altering.
But the light that streamed constantly in and threw bars of white brilliance across the floor had changed subtly. Once, he caught the faintest shadow of movement, as if someone (something?) had darted down a long winding corridor outside the cell-like structure where he lay. Now and then he caught sounds, movements, scufflings, whisperings. Creatures outside of his barred stone room.
He was not afraid; he was curious, and he was certainly roused. He thought he would welcome anyone and anything who would end the solitude and the silence.
As time went on the whisperings grew stronger and, now, the shadow that had darted across the light reflected on the stone floor took on a little more shape. Fergus began to be aware of creatures, beings, humans, struggling to reach him. After a time, he began to be aware of a pattern, and he found this extremely comforting. There was an immense security about structure. The days and nights inside the Prison were shapeless, and time had become a solid shining thing to him; a noiseless, all-embracing ocean, the shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand … Fergus pulled his thoughts up sharpie, because for some reason the images had become abruptly disturbing. The shadow on the dial … why should he suddenly see Time as a huge clock, with the hands creeping slowly nearer to death?
The whisperings were closer. Fergus tried very hard not to delude himself about it, but he knew, quite surely, that they were nearer. Stronger. Something was waking in here. There are other living creatures here.
He had always believed he could not be alone. The Lad of the Skins was a greedy harvester, there must certainly be other prisoners. But to Fergus, shut in the stone cell, light streaming endlessly in, it had seemed impossible that he would ever reach them. The stone cell was rudimentary, but it was a cell; the window had bars, and so did the door. There was nothing to stop him from walking out of the cell, and yet when he tried, there was nowhere to walk to. Great endless walls reared up before him; infinite skies stretched in all directions.
It was a hard punishment, but Fergus, alone and bereft, thought, I have deserved it. If I had never lain with Grainne, if I had never taken her sweetness and her innocence, knowing how forbidden it was, perhaps none of this would have happened. Perhaps she would still be safely inside Tara, and Medoc would never have been able to ride out from the Dark Ireland.
A hard punishment even so, he thought, weary beyond bearing, heartsick beyond endurance for the world he had lost.
Yes, but there are others here with you …
The whisperings were stronger now, and now there were soft light footsteps. There was a hesitancy and a simplicity in the whisperings that to begin with he could not understand. Simplicity, thought Fergus, considering this. Something childlike about them.
Childlike.
Childlike.
Comprehension flooded Fergus’s mind in great blinding waves, and with it came an immense pity.
Children. The ritual slaughter of the previous century. The slaying of the first-born of every family in the land. Sacrifice to the monster-god Crom Croich. He reached down into memory for everything he had ever heard, and remembered the dreadful stories; the engravings made of the blood-baths of the day. The torchlit meetings on the Plain of the Fál, for the high priests of Crom Croich’s cult had known the power of darkness in their grisly rituals, and they had known, as well, that to carry out the slaughters in the shadow of the Stone of Fál would add immense power to their offerings to the god.
Fergus had seen engravings of the butchered children, their tiny, mutilated bodies strewn about; the flickering torch flames of Crom Croich’s priests. The implacable figure of Crom Croich itself, reborn into the world by a dreadful travesty of human birth; called into being by dark sorcery. The Conablaiche had been present as well, on the fringes, grinning, its talons curved. The Lad of the Skins had squatted close by, the Knife of Light ready in his hand …
Those slain children were here with him. They were inside the Prison, thrown there by the Lad after their hearts had been offered to Crom Croich, and after their souls had been taken by the glittering ice-cold Knife of Light.
The murdered children were all here.
Of course, thought Fergus. Of course. And with understanding, he felt the first hesitant communion …
Help us …
Fergus sat up and felt his mind reach out to them.
Help us, Fergus, for we are fighting our way back to the world …
It had been Fergus’s own great-grandfather, Cormac, who had led the violent battles that had finally ended the terrible cult. Cormac had hurled himself and his armies into battle, driving back the dreadful religion, executing the high priests who had led it, forbidding the practice then or at any other time in Ireland. Cormac had gone riding furiously and fiercely into battle whenever and wherever there was need.
As I should have done! cried Fergus silently. As I should have done against Medoc! But I did. I did!
And you were defeated.
Cormac had led the Crusade Wars as well, those brave, pitiful attempts to rescue the soulless children from the Prison. “For,” he had said, “it is a terrible thing to lose a child.” He had consulted the sorcerers and the Druids, and he had, so went the legend, promised half a King’s ransom in gold to the sorcerers if they could help.
None of it had been any use. “There is nothing we can do,” said the sorcerers sadly. “There is no liberation from the Prison of Hostages. Once the Doors of the Sky have closed, there is no road back to the world of Men.”
“None that we have been able to find, anyway,” amended one of them.
“They will be safe,” said the sorcerers, kindly. “They will not suffer, for there is no pain inside the Prison of Hostages.”
There was no physical pain, but there was the endless pain of loneliness and of shapeless, formless, aimless years that stretched out before you like that shining, noiseless ocean, like the shadow on the dial, the striking of the Clock, the running out of the sands …
Help us, Fergus …
Fergus was listening with every fibre of his mind now. They were here with him, the lost children, the slaughtered boys. They had somehow broken through the timelessness and the endless silence, and they were begging for his help.
For we shall storm our way through the Doors of the Sky and down, down into the world again …
Anticipation raced through Fergus. I must help them, I must not lose them … back to the world … He tried to put from him the thought that by leading the children out, then he also would return.
He opened his mind to its fullest extent, and at once there was a flood of such scalding emotions that his senses reeled, and for a while he could not separate the layers.
But there was bitterness, that he
did identify. There was a great sad bitterness: we have been deprived of our childhood, Fergus. We have been snatched from the world before we had time to know it … Of course we are bitter …
They were bitter, but they were unbeaten. They were ready to somehow re-enter the world. Somehow they would do it …
Only we need you to lead us, Fergus — oh, help us, for it has been so very long …
Fergus said, and did not notice that the communion was no longer wordless, “Tell me why, after all these years? Why, when you have been here for so long, are you now able to make the attempt to break out?”
There was a moment, as if the children were considering him. But at last, “We are being called back,” said one of them — Fergus thought that perhaps it would be the eldest. Some kind of leader.
“We are being called back,” said the boy.
“We hear the cries for help from the world,” said another.
“Children who are threatened by the same cult that took our souls,” said a third.
Fergus said slowly, “The same cult —”
The first child said, “Crom Croich. They are reviving the slaughter of the first-born.”
*
Fergus was never afterwards able to tell when the boys ceased to be soft blurred forms and gentle wordless voices; he knew that there was a moment when they were not there, and then there was a moment when they were there with him, but he could not have told how it happened.
The boys were pale and huge-eyed, and there was no mark on them of the terrible injuries that must have been inflicted in Crom Croich’s name. Fergus looked at them for a long time, and remembered how the Conablaiche had stalked the land, gathering up living, beating hearts for its Master, and how the Lad of the Skins had followed, taking the souls …
“Will you help us?” said the boy who seemed to be a little older than the others; Fergus saw that he had a tumble of dark hair, and a rather reckless, rather attractive gleam in his eyes. Yes, unquestionably their leader. “You see,” said the boy, whose name was Conn, “we believe that we are being given the chance to break the bonds of this place and return to the world to fight the Conablaiche.” He stopped, and Fergus saw the younger ones shiver at the name. “But we have no knowledge of fighting,” said Conn. “And we have no longer any knowledge of the world that exists beyond this place.”
Fergus said, “This place …” And then, on a stronger note, “Can it be broken from? Is it possible?”
“We have learned a very little,” said Conn, “for we are here as victims; and not as a punishment.” He looked at Fergus as he said this, and Fergus did not speak.
“There are only three ways to break the bonds of the Prison of Hostages,” said Conn slowly. “And even after the bonds have been broken, there is the journey back to the world. We believe that to be a terrible journey.”
“Dangerous,” put in another boy, a little younger than Conn, but with the same lively dark eyes. Fergus thought they might be brothers, and then remembered that Crom Croich had taken only the first-born of each family. Cousins, perhaps?
Aloud, he said, “Yes? Tell me.”
“The first is by a soul being offered in exchange. That is fairly widely known.”
“Yes?” Fergus remembered how they had done this for Calatin. It seemed as if it had been in another life. “Go on.”
“A second way to break the bonds is to be called back,” said Conn. “By someone who is in immense danger —”
“That is what we think is happening to us,” said the second boy. “The children who are in danger from the Conablaiche and Crom Croich, just as we were …”
They both stopped, and Fergus, listening intently, watching them, said, “And then there is a third way?”
Conn said carefully, “We have also learned that this is a place of — of punishment. Atonement. Because we were here as victims, we believe we have been allowed a little more freedom.” He glanced at the stone walls and at the continual white light that streamed into the cell. “We have explored this place,” he said, his eyes suddenly distant. “We have found out that there are many levels and many roads that lead into it.” He looked back at Fergus. “And only three roads that lead out of it,” he said, and now Fergus saw that there was pity in his eyes.
“The third way out?” he said. “Will you tell me?”
“Fergus, it will not be easy.”
“Tell me,” said Fergus again, and Conn seemed to hesitate, glancing at the others.
At length, he said, “Deep within the Prison is a place called the Stone Hall of Judgement. Within it sit the Judges. We do not understand what they are, for we have never dared to enter the Stone Hall. We know that they are not human. But we believe that a soulless human who approaches them will be judged according to his sins, and a punishment pronounced. If he is able to bear the punishment, then it is possible for him to return to the world.” Another pause. “If you brave the Stone Hall, and suffer the punishment, then you are shown the way back to the world.”
“But even then, it is a terrible and a dangerous road,” said Fergus, half to himself. And then, looking back at the boys, “You could take me to this place?”
“Oh, yes,” said Conn.
“And the punishment?”
“Punishments are made to suit the sin,” said Conn. “That we do know.”
The immutable law. The ancient rule that punishments were weighed; that penance was meted out in exact accordance with the sin. If you sow thorns, you should not expect to harvest roses. What we drink is what we have brewed earlier. Yes. Not to be argued against, any of it. Fergus thought, But have I not suffered enough already? Surely I have made reparation? I have endured the solitude and the silence. Surely I can now be counted absolved?
He knew that it was not enough. He had sinned, he had inflicted terrible grievous hurt on Grainne. Against these lost children, these forgotten, soulless creatures, he had not been punished at all. These little ones had not sinned. They had been torn from the world, they had been mutilated and ripped open, and their hearts had been offered up to a monster-god.
“What else must I do?” said Fergus at last. “What must I do?” And thought that there was nothing he would not do to escape the Prison of Hostages, and there was nothing he would not do to help these children back to the world.
“First we must take you to the Stone Hall of Judgement. You will have to enter it alone, and you will have to face the Four Judges. It is frightening, that,” said Conn thoughtfully. “And we do not think there is any appeal against the Judges’ sentence.” He looked at Fergus, and sudden compassion showed in his face.
“Yes?” said Fergus.
Conn said gently, “Fergus, the punishment must suit the sin.”
And Fergus stared at him, and knew that his sin had been of the flesh, and a dreadful fear flooded his mind.
The sin of the flesh. And the penance must be in accordance with the sin.
For an incalculable time he stared at the boys, unable to speak, certainly unable to think properly.
The sin of the flesh. “Oh, no,” whispered Fergus.
“It is the only way,” said Conn. “It is the only way to break the bonds and make reparation and lead us back to save the children from Crom Croich.”
“Why me!” cried Fergus in agony, and at once knew the answer.
Because you are what you are. Because you are a Prince of Ireland. You are one of the last of the Ancient Bloodline. You are a descendant of the great Cormac, and of Dierdriu, and of Niall of the Nine Hostages. No one has a stronger duty.
And then, most terrible of all — because you lay with your sister, and thus you drew down upon Tara the curse uttered at the very beginning.
All Ireland will seethe with evil and the skies will darken and the rivers will run with blood …
“Can I be held responsible for what I am?” said Fergus.
“We are all of us responsible for what we are,” said Conn quietly, and Fergus thought, Yes, they have a ri
ght to say that.
“And you are a Prince of Tara.”
And if I had not loved Grainne, perhaps none of it would have happened. Perhaps the curse would have been deflected yet again, and Tara would have been safe for a little longer, and life, in the end, would have gone on very much as before.
If you pour the wine, you must expect to drink it …
Fergus bowed his head submissively and held out his hands and the boys clustered about him.
*
He was aware that they were taking him through the vast echoing emptinesses of the great Prison; through high-ceilinged rooms, beneath vaulted chambers of blue and gold and ivory; along dim galleries and crimson panelled halls and through chambers that looked as if they had been hewn from solid gold, and on through rooms where the walls were encrusted with precious gems.
“But they are living gems,” said one of the children in a soft, awed voice.
Living rubies and emeralds, and great gushing waterfalls of diamonds, and clusters of garnets and gentle opals …
There were rooms of marble and porphyry and topaz, and Fergus, his eyes dazzled, his senses swimming, thought, The Gates of Paradise studded with chalcedony and jasper, inlaid with firestones and cedarwood, rimmed with turquoise and moonstones …
Conn murmured some of the names as they went. “Although we do not know many,” he said.
There was the Land of Ever-Living and the Plain of Two Mists. “To be avoided,” said Conn with a sideways glance, and Fergus nodded and tried not to think of where they might be going and of what lay ahead. He thought he ought to be interested in all he was seeing; he thought that if things had been different, he would have been interested and fascinated and unable to think of anything other than the great glittering halls and the achingly beautiful places. Certainly he ought to be storing everything up.
He could not do it. The images, the unfolding splendours, each room more mystical and more brilliant than the last, were too much and too many. Aloud he said, “Have you tried to break out before?” and Conn regarded him with the grave stare that was friendly and becoming familiar.