Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  The coiling and the hissing of the snakes was becoming frenzied. They know I am here, thought Annabel. They know that I am trying to crawl away in the dark, in secret, and they are excited. They are waiting for me to slip and fall into the centre of them. If that happens, I shall probably be smothered before they can bite me. No, I shan’t, because I shall wake up. I must remember that this isn’t happening, thought Annabel. Snakes do not live inside mountains, not artificially like this, and none of it is happening, and very soon now I shall wake up.

  But the thought of being smothered by coiling, writhing snakes was so utterly repulsive that for a moment she could hardly breathe, let alone move. And then, because the idea of slipping, of missing a foothold or a handhold, was so awful, she began to miss her footing, and she began to find the bridge slippery, as if a thin film of something oily was covering it.

  “But this is becoming childish,” said Annabel out loud. And then, rather crossly, “I don’t know who you think you are, Aife or Reflection, or whatever your name is, but I don’t think much of your spells. I think they are obvious,” said Annabel very loudly indeed.

  If it had not been so dark, it might have been easier, but on the other hand, if it had been lighter, she would have been able to see the snakes. Perhaps it was better not to see them. In any case, she would be bound to wake up at any minute.

  The brief light had shown the snakes to be not very far below the bridge. They might not wait very much longer for her to miss her footing. They might even be able to uncoil and slide on to the bridge anyway. But this was so terrible a thought as to be nearly unbearable. “I wish,” said Annabel aloud again to the listening darkness, “that you had sent me a proper battle, Reflection. I could have coped with that. I might even have enjoyed it,” said Annabel challengingly, and waited hopefully, in case the challenge was taken up.

  No. Nothing altered in the least. Clearly this was the nightmare, and clearly she had to find a way out of it somehow. And at any minute she would lose the precarious hold she had on the bridge, and she would fall … With that thought the bridge shivered and moved beneath her, and her hand closed about nothing, and her left foot skidded on a patch of grease, and she fell …

  … right into Taliesin’s arms.

  She was lying in a perfectly ordinary cave, with the bluish light they had become used to, and Fael-Inis was watching them, and there was suddenly something normal and familiar and comforting about everything, and after all she had been right, there were no snakes, and no narrow bridges that went on for ever.

  And Taliesin was holding her hard against him, and there was an expression in his eyes that made her feel warm and safe and as if she could fight this battle single-handed …

  And then Fael-Inis said, “We are in the domain of Reflection, Annabel.”

  “The Cloak of Nightmares.”

  “Yes.” He regarded her. “Was it so very terrible, child?”

  “Well,” said Annabel, “it was very real for a time.” And looked round cautiously.

  “Yes, she has her tricks, Reflection,” said Fael-Inis. “But she is sometimes rather childish.” He moved away from them, apparently examining the cave walls now, and Annabel looked up at Taliesin and grinned.

  “All right?”

  “All right,” said Annabel. And then, curiously, “What were you doing while I was fighting snakes and rats?”

  “Praying,” said Taliesin softly, his eyes tender.

  “Really?”

  He smiled down at her, and traced the outline of her features with a finger. “Listen, my love,” he said softly, “I would sooner lose you to a — what was it? — oh, yes, a snake pit, than see you at the hands of the Drakon patrol, as we did earlier on. But in reality,” he said, a suddenly serious note in his voice, “in reality, I could not bear to lose you at all.” His hands caressed the tumble of coppery hair. “I should like to lock you away from every bad thing in the world, Annabel. So that nothing harmful or hurtful would ever come near you. So that you would be forever safe.”

  Forever safe …

  “Oh!” said Annabel, and smiled.

  “You would hate it,” said Taliesin calmly.

  “Would I?”

  “Yes. No cages, ever,” said Taliesin, and Annabel saw again the misty turquoise world and knew that there would be no cages there at all. “But,” said Taliesin, tightening his hold about her, “I should like to put you in my house, and see you curled up on the hearthrug, in the room where I work, and I should like to sit opposite you at the end of every day, and share with you everything that has happened during that day-all the little absurdities and all the comical events, and the sadnesses and the happinesses which make up life. I would put you in my house, but you would be forever free.”

  Forever safe … forever free … Annabel, who did not dare believe that life would possibly be so full of delight, dredged up a token protest.

  “What about this question of the different worlds?” Because it would be so easy — oh, yes, it would be the easiest thing ever to yield to Taliesin, and to go with him to his house (what would it be like?) and share the happinesses and the sadnesses and the absurdities of life …

  I think I had better fight against this, thought Annabel, holding on to sanity. I think I had better remember that things like this don’t happen any longer. Sharing, and wine, and being loved … Being free …

  And so although she was hating saying it, she said, “What about the different worlds?” And stared at him hopefully, and waited for him to find a way out for them.

  Taliesin, understanding at once why she was arguing against him, his mood soaring into pure and untrammelled joy, said, “O my love, have you not yet learned that the world is only a glass that shines. An icicle dome, Annabel, through which the players strut … a ladder to go up and down, a perpetual see-saw, a towering wall through which we have to find our own chinks of escape …” He stopped and looked at her, and Annabel said, “Do you always talk so extravagantly?”

  “Nearly always. It is a very good disguise,” said Taliesin. And then, more seriously, “I will take you back if I have to traffic with every Lord of the Dark Ireland, Annabel.”

  “But,” said Fael-Inis softly, from behind them, “‘we travel not for trafficking alone, or for lust of knowing what should be known …’ Do you truly intend to take a golden road, Taliesin, and find yourself beyond the last blue mountain, or across the angry sea?” He stood looking down at them, and Taliesin grinned and said, “There will be a way back,” and Fael-Inis said, “Perhaps. If so, we will find it. In the meantime —”

  “In the meantime,” said Taliesin, standing up and pulling Annabel to her feet, “there is a Second Cavern and the Second Guardian. Reflection.”

  “Yes.” Fael-Inis studied Annabel. “It was a childish ploy of Reflection’s, that one.”

  “I did see it for what it was,” said Annabel.

  “Of course. And, as I have said, Reflection is sometimes rather childish. She intrigued and plotted for years to get the Nightcloak, and now that she has it, she finds that she is not sufficiently human to use it to its full extent.” He regarded Annabel thoughtfully. “If Reflection had been a pure-bred human,” he said, “I think the snake nest would have been very much worse and the escape very much harder. She makes frivolous use of the Cloak now that she has it, but then she is a frivolous creature.” The mischievous light flared in his eyes. “But you shall judge for yourselves. Are you ready to go on now? For we are at the entrance to the next Cavern. And I daresay we are being watched and listened to,” he added.

  “Well, of course you are being watched, my dears,” said an amused, rather husky voice from the darkness. “Do, for goodness’ sake come in, for if I do not have someone to talk to, I shall scream with boredom!”

  Fael-Inis lifted an amused eyebrow. “Well,” he said, holding out his hand to them. “Shall we go in?”

  *

  Aife, sometimes called Reflection, was waiting for them. She came forw
ard at once, a thin ravaged creature with a curtain of black hair and huge eyes with painted-on eyelashes. She wore — Annabel blinked — a clinging silk flame-red gown, with a velvet cloak thrown rather negligently across her shoulders. But there was a smile of welcome on her face, and her hands were outstretched to them.

  “And, my dear,” she said to Annabel, “you must please forgive that bit of fun just now. A snake nest, wasn’t it. Too horrid for you. That wretched Cloak.” She looked at Fael-Inis. “So,” said Aife softly, “Fael-Inis. The rebel angel. Dear boy, imagine us meeting again.”

  “Imagine it,” said Fael-Inis.

  “After all these years,” said Aife.

  “After all these years,” agreed Fael-Inis blandly.

  “Did you know I would be here?”

  “Wild horses would not have kept me from this Cavern once I knew you to be its Guardian, Lady.”

  Aife shrieked with glee. “You see!” she said to Annabel. “Perfect courtesy. So refreshing. But then he was always the politest of all the … I suppose you are staying, are you? Well, you must certainly come into my little abode. Too tiny for words, but there it is. And then we had better discuss getting you through the doorway, for I expect that is why you are here, is it? Yes, I thought it would be.” There was a whisper of silk, a flutter of hands, and Annabel and Taliesin found themselves somehow led through into a small, rather richly furnished chamber.

  “Oh, it is too cramped for anything,” said Aife. “Not what I am used to, of course, and if I had only known … If I had harboured the smallest suspicion about the living conditions down here, I should never have agreed to come in on this one.”

  “I daresay,” said Fael-Inis, “that you had no choice,” and Taliesin and Annabel were instantly conscious of his ability to adapt to any situation. There was a lightness in his manner now; he was mischievously flirting with Reflection.

  “No choice!” shrieked Aife. “My dears, I was practically dragged here protesting! I was virtually coerced into it. The only thing they did not threaten me with was blackmail, and I daresay they would have done that if they could have found something sufficiently discreditable about me. My life is an open book,” said Aife, gazing at Fael-Inis limpidly.

  “So I believe.”

  “Oh, well, of course,” said Aife, “if it had not been for my debts, I should never have agreed.” She regarded them with her head on one side, and Annabel found herself thinking that Aife was really rather attractive. “Hopelessly insolvent,” said Aife, and spread her hands. “But what would you do? One must live, you know, and eat, and entertain a guest now and then, and have the odd rag to one’s back. And take a lover or two …” Her eyes slid to Fael-Inis. “I do not always admit to it,” said Aife confidentially, “but amongst people such as ourselves — and I can see that you are a man of the world, sir,” she said to Taliesin suddenly, and inspected him with interest. “Very intriguing,” said Aife, and Taliesin grinned. “Well, anyway, they were becoming so expensive, the young men,” said Aife. “They must be having chariots and golden pomegranates, and they must be haring off to rescue maidens from dark towers and slay dragons, and really, I am the most generous of souls. But these things cost money. People simply do not realise.” She gestured them to be seated, and arranged herself gracefully on a silk couch, plumping up several cushions. Cushions? thought Annabel wildly. Down here?

  “I like to be comfortable,” explained Reflection. “And since I am bonded here for — oh, let us not count it up or I shall become so depressed, and there is no use in being depressed when there is no one to be depressed at. Sir, you seem like a gentleman of some discernment, I wonder will you pour us all a glass of wine. Yes, it is in the cupboard there — a very good brew,” she said to the other two. “I have never bought the inferior stuff, not even in my really bad times. People are far too quick to spot these things, and the next thing would have been that they would have been spreading it about that I was on my beam ends and threatened with a debtors’ prison! And once that got about,” said Aife, “I should have been ruined, I promise you. I should certainly have been hounded out of the Inner Circle of the Sybilline Ladies. They are rather severe about debt, you know,” she said as she daintily rearranged her draperies.

  Taliesin, who had poured the wine, brought it to them and said, “Madam, I believe you are a lady after my own heart,” and Aife sat up and patted her hair, and looked at Taliesin with renewed interest, and Taliesin winked at Annabel, and handed the tray with the wine chalices to Aife.

  “And no doubt, madam, you will not baulk at observing the ancient custom of my people, which is to taste each chalice before offering it to your guests.”

  Aife laughed, and said at once, “Oh, it is not poisoned. That is not at all my style. Fael-Inis will tell you that.”

  Fael-Inis, sipping the wine with apparent enjoyment, said tranquilly, “Aife has not, so far as I know, poisoned anyone yet.”

  Aife leaned forward. “Enchantments and nightmares,” she said firmly. “That is what I go in for. I keep to my own line; it is far better. When they offered me this post, I accepted only on condition that I should be allowed to do the thing in my own way. Nightmares and the odd bewitchment, I said. Take it or leave it, I said. They took it, of course, well, they had no choice, because I put it to you whether anyone would choose to be buried alive in this place for several centuries — dear me, now I have said it — several centuries, and it has the most enervating ring, no matter how quickly you say it.” She leaned forward, and Annabel, fascinated, leaned forward as well. “Five hundred years,” said Aife in a confidential whisper. “But not a minute longer. And really, that is quite short as these guarding positions go.” She reclined again amongst her cushions, and regarded them over the rim of her wine chalice. “Still, I escaped my creditors, which is something to be very thankful for, although when you consider the screaming boredom down here — well, I wonder sometimes whether there would not have been more life inside a debtors’ prison. If it were not for the shame” said Reflection. “And my family would never live it down.”

  The wine was very good indeed, or Annabel thought it was, because she had never drunk any before. It tasted of something faintly fruity and of something very mellow and soft, and there was a warming feel to it. Taliesin had lifted his glass to Aife, and said quite solemnly, “Madam, as I thought, you and I have tastes in common, and were you not an enchantress, and I a poor Tyrian money lender, and a human at that —”

  “Well,” said Aife, sitting up and eyeing Taliesin all over again, “as to that, I cannot see that there would be any problem, sir, because I do have quite a lot of human blood, you know, although my mother would never openly admit to it. A little peccadillo two generations back. My great-grandfather and a serving girl —”

  Taliesin said solemnly, “It happens to the best,” and Aife leaned forward, and said, “It was possessing human blood that gave me the idea of acquiring the Nightcloak in the first place, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Although I have to say,” said Aife, disconsolately, “that it has not been quite the success I hoped.”

  “It is a human’s weapon,” said Fael-Inis. “Although I suppose in your rush to steal it, you forgot about that.”

  “No, I did not,” said Aife crossly, and Annabel, watching and listening, thought, So! We have established that she is indeed partly human, just as Fael-Inis said. She will have human weaknesses, thought Annabel hopefully. But she found herself rather liking the amiable Aife, and she found herself hoping that there was not going to be some kind of messy fight where Aife might get hurt.

  “I suppose,” said Aife presently, “that you have encountered Spectre? Yes, I thought you must have done.”

  “A few winds and tempests, and a storm or so,” said Fael-Inis, regarding Aife with amusement.

  “Oh, dear me, the poor soul, is she still using those?” said Aife, sitting up, her eyes bright. “Oh, she will have to widen her repertoire if ever sh
e is to get on. Winds and tempests — so old-fashioned). And really, the sort of thing that anyone can do — yes, it is the easiest thing in the world, I could whip up a bit of a whirlwind myself if I put my mind to it. Oh, she will never get anywhere, that Spectre. I told her so — it was at a necromancers’ dinner — I remember I wore silver grey and I had a new cloak with sections of a cut rainbow woven into it — ruinously expensive — but it created such a stir, and I believe I took six lovers that night — it might have been more — but there were certainly six good ones. One of them went on to capture the Golden Horn, and I remember that there were some very prurient jokes made about it at the time.

  “But I told Spectre straight: My dear, I said, if you are to make anything of yourself as an enchantress, you will have to branch out a bit. I even offered to give her a few lessons, but she thought she knew it all. People usually do think so. And so there she is, the First Guardian and no prospect of advancement at all, although if we are to be candid, I am only the Second, although only for five hundred years. Not an hour longer!

  “However,” said Aife, “we had better talk about you. Dear me, I did not expect to meet you again, Fael-Inis. Are you still racketing about the world in your Time Chariot? Of course you are. My dear,” this to Annabel, “my dear, do make him tell you the story of how he got that. It is a very good tale. Of course, we have known each other for a very long time. I shall not say just how long. But it is a good many centuries now. Do you remember the Battle of the Goddess Danaan, Fael-Inis?”

  “We were on different sides,” said Fael-Inis.

  “We always were,” said Aife disconsolately. “And then there was the War between the Children of Lir. Do you remember that one? Wasn’t it that night I tried to lure you to bed?”

  “I believe there were several such nights when you tried to do that,” said Fael-Inis with perfect courtesy, and Aife sighed.

  “He would never be lured,” she said to Taliesin and Annabel. “My dears, I even took wagers that I would get him, but I never did. So devastating to my ego, because I have always been considered to be irresistible. They called me that once, you know. Aife the Irresistible. I don’t know that I cared for it overmuch. Rather common-sounding.” She looked at Fael-Inis again and sighed. “Really, dear boy, it was such a pity,” she said. “And so ungenerous of you, because I should have dined out on it for centuries. Ladies’ Nights, the Inner Circle of the Sybillines — oh, I should have been asked everywhere, because everyone is fascinated by him, and my stock would have risen sky high, my dears. And they all know,” said Aife confidingly, “everyone knows that I always kiss and tell. Well, it’s all part of the fun.”