by Sarah Rayne
She looked, at Fael-Inis expectantly, and Fael-Inis smiled slightly and sketched a bow and said, “Your gain was my loss, Reflection,” and Aife sighed.
“You see? Immaculately polite, but elusive. Nothing you can ever quite get hold of. I should have washed my hands of him centuries ago.”
Fael-Inis said, “It is your habit of flinging your lovers into the river the next morning, or dismembering them and feeding them to jackals and hyenas that is so off-putting, Reflection, my dear,” and Aife shrieked with mirth again.
“Oh my dear,” she said. “Do they still say that of me!
How perfectly ridiculous! And you know as well as I do that it was just a piece of spiteful gossip. You cannot trust anyone these days! However,” said Aife, “we are straying from the point, and the point now is what we are going to do with you all. Are you sure you want to get into the Cavern of the Clock?
“Well, it is quite your affair.
“And there is the ridiculous business of the locked door and the key. The idea is that you are supposed to try to get the key from me and I am supposed to resist. It hasn’t changed at all, I suppose? No, I didn’t think it had, although they do change it from time to time. And,” she said in an aside to Annabel, “they never tell me. Still, it makes no difference to me, because as far as I am concerned, you are welcome to the Cavern of the Clock. My dears, the noise! Positively deafening! Tick-ticking until you could scream. And absurd little men in black scurrying all over the place. I have nothing to do with any of it,” said Aife. “I made that clear at the beginning. A bit of spell weaving and a few nightmares and that is all. Don’t expect me to go into that place, I said, and do you know, they never have. Cold people. No charm,” said Aife severely. “Still, I have to obey their rules, because that is what I am here for. And we all get checked on now and then — oh, yes, quite businesslike. A kind of annual audit they call it, and my dears the things they do if you do not play the game — I could make your hair curl, really I could. Still,” said Aife, and stood up and quite suddenly seemed very much taller, “still, we may as well get on with it.”
Fael-Inis had risen almost at the same instant, and to Annabel it seemed as if he too had grown in stature, so that he now matched Reflection in height.
They eyed one another. “I suppose,” said Aife softly, “that you want me to give you the key, do you?”
“Yes,” said Fael-Inis softly, and held out his hand.
There was a moment of rather unexpected silence. Then Aife said crossly, “Don’t be silly, Fael-Inis. You know the rules. We have to do battle,” and Fael-Inis smiled, and leaned forward to touch Aife’s hand.
At once there was a crackle of light, and Aife’s form changed into a menacing towering figure, easily twelve feet high, brandishing a staff of pure light, her visage threatening.
Fael-Inis matched her without a second’s hesitation, hurling a shaft of fire across the cave, so that Annabel blinked and found the dazzle stayed in her vision for some time afterwards.
Aife resumed her normal appearance, and glared at Fael-Inis. “That was unfair,” she said. “If you knew how I schemed and searched, and worked — yes, I even worked to get that staff of light, and then you disintegrate it with positively no effort at all with one of your flaming torches. Oh, it is too bad of you, it is really!” she said, and turned about and sat down, frowning at him.
Fael-Inis said softly, “But you could acquire a flaming torch, Reflection. One of the easiest —”
“Well, it is not,” said Aife crossly. “If I was not partly human … You have no idea the obstacles I encounter.”
“Yes, you are a mongrel.”
“But with the best of both sides,” said Aife. “And of course, it is having human blood that has enabled me to wear the Cloak of Nightmares.”
“It suits you,” said Fael-Inis, still in the same soft tone, and at once Aife said, “Oh, this old thing. My dear, it is the veriest rag!” But she looked at him expectantly.
Fael-Inis said, “I will barter with you for the key, Aife.”
“Will you?” A sudden speculative and acquisitive gleam lit her eyes. “What will you offer me?”
Fael-Inis grinned. “I can offer many things,” he said, “but to begin with, we will say a torch of fire.”
“Really? Such as the one you used just now?”
“Such as that.”
“Well, that will do for a start,” said Aife. “What else?”
“Shall we say immunity from the Time Fire?”
“Now that,” said Aife thoughtfully, “would be very useful indeed. Can you really do that?”
“Since you are only partially human, I can.”
“Yes, I will accept that as well,” said Aife, and looked at him and waited, and then, as he did not speak, “Dear me,” she said, “nothing else, Fael-Inis?”
Fael-Inis moved forward without warning then, and took her hands in his. “Come now, Reflection,” he said, and there was a coaxing note in his voice, “come now, my dear, we know one another very well. We are old enemies.”
“I would have preferred that we were old lovers,” said Aife.
“That too could be arranged,” said Fael-Inis, and there was another sudden silence. “Well?” he said at last, and his voice was so low and so intimate that Taliesin and Annabel had to strain to hear it.
“After all these centuries,” said Aife thoughtfully. “Dear me, this is all very unexpected.” She eyed him. “You will expect me to give you the key?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well,” said Aife thoughtfully, “it is against all the rules, of course. But I suppose I could say I was forced.”
“You could do that.”
“And — I can still have the torch of fire and the immunity from the Time Fire?”
“Assuredly.”
“You won’t change your mind?”
“Did you ever know me to break a promise?”
“It seems a reasonable agreement,” said Aife cautiously. “Although you do know that I can give you no help against the Third Guardian.” She looked at them. “Make no mistake,” said Aife, “the Sensleibhe is quite as terrible and quite as cunning and certainly as evil as the legends tell. You will do well to beware of her.”
“The bargain,” said Fael-Inis softly.
Aife hunched one shoulder and said rather pettishly, “Oh, very well. But I do think it is the unfairest bargain ever struck. And I should have much preferred to have got you by my own wiles.”
“No one need ever know,” said Fael-Inis, and his voice was positively purring now.
“That is true,” said Aife, brightening, and looked at him again. “And it has been a very long time since we met, you and I.” She stood up and led the way through a small gap in the wall into an adjoining room, through which Annabel glimpsed a silken bed with canopies and rich hangings, and a general air of extreme luxury.
Fael-Inis turned to follow her, and then paused in the doorway and looked at Annabel and Taliesin.
“The things I do for Ireland,” said the rebel angel, grinning from ear to ear and following his lady into the bedchamber.
Annabel’s ancestors, at some time in their history, had been very particular about what they had called etiquette, which, as far as Annabel had been able to make out, was simply common politeness and the correct behaviour in a given situation. But they had taken it all very seriously; they had written books about it, which you had to consult so that you knew what to do and what to say, and how to reply to invitations, and how to accept a proposal of marriage, and the proper knives and forks to use when you went out. Some of it had been informative, and some of it had been bewildering, and nearly all of it had been amusing. Annabel had read quite a lot of books secretly, when the Drakon patrols could be trusted not to be prowling.
None of the books of etiquette told you how you ought to behave in a situation like this.
Taliesin was no help at all. He seated himself on Aife’s silk couch, poured himself a
nother chalice of wine, leaned back with his feet crossed, and prepared to wait for Fael-Inis.
“I suppose,” said Annabel at last, “that he will get the key?”
“Oh, I should think so,” said Taliesin, his eyes brimful of mirth. He got up and refilled his glass.
“And, Aife will let us through into the next Cavern,” said Annabel.
“She will,” said Taliesin, and grinned and set down his wine. And then, “Come here,” he said in quite a different voice.
“Now?” said Annabel uncertainly.
“Yes.”
*
This, then, was a foretaste of that forbidden thing; the act that the Drakon had tried to outlaw, and had hedged about with so many restrictions and so many rules that most people had forgotten that there was supposed to be joy in it.
Annabel had not expected to experience quite such a soaring delight and she had certainly not expected to feel such an incredulous joy. When Taliesin lifted his lips from hers, she clung to him because the Cavern, Aife’s silk-hung chamber, was whirling about her head, and there had surely never been anything like this, there had surely never been a feeling in the world to equal this, not anywhere, ever.
Taliesin was smiling down at her, and Annabel smiled back, rather shyly, and began to hope very strenously that he would kiss her again.
“Of course I will,” said Taliesin, and bent his head.
Presently, Annabel recovered herself sufficiently to say, “Is that one of the forbidden things?”
“Not in my world,” said Taliesin, and pulled her to him again, and said, “There is far better ahead of us yet, my love,” and Annabel stared at him and felt dizzy again, because when Taliesin said “my love” like that, in such a soft caressing voice, that such things were forbidden mattered not a jot, because Taliesin would somehow find a way to take her with him into his own world, and she would sit on the hearthrug in his house, and they would share the absurdities and the sadnesses and the happinesses … Like this, with his arms about her, with the sudden press of his body against her, so that she could feel the surge of passion rising in him — Oh, yes, lovely! cried Annabel silently — it was possible to believe it would happen.
Taliesin thought, Yes, I could take her now, here, in this dark old mountain, with half a dozen dangers all around us! Shall I? And he remembered the restrictions and the prohibitions of her world, and took a deep breath and put her gently from him. No. It must wait a while yet, it must wait until they had traversed the dangers and overcome them, until they were far from the memory of the advances of the dreadful lusting men of the Drakon, and until they were back in Ireland, the Ireland of the Wolfkings, with the Darkness of Medoc and his creatures sealed in their own terrible domain again.
And then, my love, we will count the world — all the worlds — well lost, and you will be in my house, and I shall never let you go …
He smiled at her, and thought she understood, and thought there was all the time in the world to begin loving her, and then thought, I hope there is.
Fael-Inis emerged at last, and Annabel, who had been thinking this might be rather awkward, found that it was perfectly easy to greet him with composure. It was even possible to listen quite sensibly to his plan for the next section of the journey.
“The key?” said Taliesin at last. “Did you get the key?”
Fael-Inis grinned and produced the key from behind his back.
*
The third cavern. The last of the caves guarding the Doomsday Clock. The last Guardian.
As they walked through the tunnels, Annabel found that she was beginning to feel much more courageous. Because they had defeated two of the Guardians already?
Taliesin, who had been listening for the Horsemen, was feeling intensely alive and alert. He thought that this quest would have been remarkable under any circumstances, but that it was very remarkable indeed with Annabel at his side. He knew he would not let her go back to that dreadful bleak world, and then he remembered that if they failed in this quest, there might no longer be a world for any of them to go back to.
After a time, Annabel said, “The Horsemen are not quite so close to us now, don’t you think?”
“They are following us, but at a distance,” said Fael-Inis, and Taliesin, who had also felt this, nodded.
“Will they try to prevent us from entering the torchlit Cavern?” he asked.
Fael-Inis said slowly, “I think they will try to stop us from destroying the Clock. But also, they must first get past the Guardians, of course.” He glanced at them. “That is one of the purposes of the Guardians,” he said. “To stop all comers from getting to the Clock.” He grinned. “That would be a battle worth watching,” he said, and Annabel stared, because he spoke as lightly and as amusedly as if a battle between the Four legendary Heralds of the ending of the world, and three evil sorceresses, was quite a trivial affair.
Taliesin said, “If the Horsemen do reach the cavern,” and stopped and then went on. “If they reach it,” he said, “surely they will try to speed the Clock’s progress to midnight.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Because,” said Taliesin, still pursuing this thought and not liking it overmuch, “because once the Clock’s hands reach midnight, then —”
“Then,” said Fael-Inis, “the Apocalypse will ride into the world.”
“Will we see it?”
Fael-Inis did not immediately reply. “You saw a vision of it in Spectre’s cave,” he said, and Annabel shivered. “You should pray to every god you have ever held dear that you will not see it in truth,” he said seriously.
There was a moment of complete silence. Somewhere close by, Annabel could hear the melancholy dripping of water from the cave roofs. A dreadful coldness closed about her heart, and for a really terrible second, she wished she had not come, that she had stayed behind in the safety and the familiarity of her tiny house where, even if there were dangers, one knew what the dangers were, and providing you obeyed the Drakon, you would be let alone.
And then Taliesin said, mockingly, “Dear me, then we shall have to be very careful,” and Annabel felt safe and back in her skin, and knew that it was entirely right that they should be doing this.
“But of course we shall be successful,” said Taliesin. “I have no intention of being associated with anything doomed to ignominious failure.”
There was a rather desolate air about their path now. The cave roofs were low so that they had to bend their heads, and the ground was becoming uneven and ridged, and the cave walls were pitted with something unidentifiable. Once Fael-Inis stopped, and a gleam of light fell across a section of wall.
“You see?” he said softly, and reached out a hand to trace the faint lines of carved figures.
Taliesin moved closer and stood for a moment, studying them. “What are they?”
“A record of the First Battle,” said Fael-Inis, and in the dim cave his voice was low. “The Light-Bringer storming heaven’s gates. Man being cast naked and defenceless into the world below. The final great victory.” He turned to look at them. “Did I not tell you that these mountains were the oldest thing on earth.”
“Who made the pictures?” asked Annabel quietly.
“I did,” said Fael-Inis, and quite suddenly he was no longer the rather amusing companion and the strong ally who had fought with them against Spectre and Reflection, or the reckless creature who had summoned the salamanders and taken them across the world in the Time Chariot. He was a creature of fire and light and speed, who had consorted with angels and gods and devils, and who had possessed the immense courage and the breathtaking defiance needed to turn his back on heaven, to walk away from the great immortal battle that had never ceased to echo down the centuries, and whose outcome had been to lock Man out of Paradise.
“He is what he is,” thought Annabel, aware that the words came not from within but from without.
Taliesin, standing on the other side, knew that they had been afforded a fleeting glimps
e of the creature who existed beneath the brilliant, mischievous exterior. He is many things, this one, thought Taliesin. He is transcendent, and he is probably immortal, and if he is not quite divine, he is certainly more than human. He is mystical and celestial and spiritual in a way I do not think we can comprehend. You could know him for a thousand years and not know him at all, or you could know him for an hour and discover everything. But he is elusive and wild, and he will never be captured. He will be no man’s and he will certainly never be any woman’s.
Be glad that I am yours, if only for a time, came the swift response and Taliesin smiled and thought it was perhaps not arrogant of him to hope that he had known Fael-Inis as well as anyone might.
The images on the cave wall were intriguing. “And rather frightening,” said Annabel, tracing them with a finger. “There is fire and blood and agony in them.”
“Yes, there was all of that, Mortal. There will be all of that again,” said Fael-Inis, watching her. And then, with one of his sudden switches of mood, “Shall we go on?” he said.
It was an eerie and uncomfortable sensation to walk like this through the dim mountain, knowing that following them were the Four ancient Heralds, the four terrible figures of myth and legend, the Horsemen who had ridden into the world and who would shortly try to fling open the world’s Gates and let the Apocalypse in.
The light seemed to be getting dimmer, and the tunnels were certainly becoming narrower and more difficult to walk through. Several times they encountered piles of rubble where the roof had fallen in, and each time they had to stop and clear a way through.