by Sarah Rayne
The tunnel was narrow and the floor was ridged and uneven, and here and there slippery and gleaming faintly with phosphorescence. The boys were quiet, flinching from the weird carvings on the sides of the tunnel — “Faces,” said Michael in rather a small voice — and Fergus heard his own voice saying calmly, “No. Only an odd formation of the rock.”
But all the time he was remembering the Ferryman, and he was remembering how the Ferryman might be lying in wait for them. Supposing he was leading the boys into danger? But I can no longer judge, thought Fergus, going on down the tunnel.
They advanced slowly, silently, because there was something eerie and sinister about the light now.
“Waterlight,” said Conn, and Fergus nodded, and felt his heart bound, because surely if there was waterlight, they must be nearing the River of Souls.
There was the sound of water dripping steadily now, somewhere quite near. Fergus, helping Michael over an uneven piece of the tunnel floor, had the impression of tiny web-footed creatures quite near to them.
And then Niall said softly, “I smell water.” And as he spoke, the tunnel widened without warning, and the light changed, and Fergus heard the boys gasp.
Directly ahead of them, stretching as far as they could see, was an endless expanse of dark shiny water, with tiny glinting red lights in it.
The River of Souls.
*
For a long time they stood transfixed, watching the dark, silky River of Souls, remembering all of the tales and all of the myths: human souls dragged down and held beneath the surface; the Ferryman sculling the dark tunnels in his craft, leaping on his victims, wrapping his long scaly arms about their necks from behind, pulling them down, down into the dark cold depths …
The water barely moved, but they knew that it did move. A myriad of lights danced and glinted and tiny waves lapped gently against the River banks. Fergus saw the boys move back from it at once, and he thought that although the water seemed harmless, it was not harmless at all. It would reach for you, it would pull you out into the centre of the River, and you would never be able to get back …
Conn said softly, “The lights are the trapped souls that the Ferryman has captured. They are held beneath the River’s surface, as firmly and as endlessly as we were held inside the Prison of Hostages. They are in pawn to the Dark Master,” and several of the boys shivered.
Fergus, staring at the River, said, “Does the Ferryman serve Crom Croich?” and at once there was a disturbance in the water, a ruffling of the silky skin, a deepening in the red glow of the tiny lights that were human souls caught and caged by the Ferryman.
“Hush,” said Conn. “Yes, we believe that the Ferryman does serve that one. As do all creatures from the Dark Ireland.”
“Can’t we do anything to rescue them?” said Fergus, unable to take his eyes from the moving lights in the water.
Human souls, living, breathing, aware human souls, trapped and caught and held … “Can’t we help them?” he said.
“No one has ever found a way to help them,” said Conn. “Just as no one has ever found a way out of the Prison of Hostages.”
To Fergus, the soft sinister River and the hundreds of tiny winking lights was the most pitiful sight he had ever seen.
“But there are prisons for souls everywhere in the world,” said Conn, as if he thought Fergus would know this.
“I can hear them,” said Fergus suddenly, and Conn said, “But you couldn’t possibly —” He went quiet and looked at Fergus.
“I can hear something,” said Fergus. And then, “Or is it just the water lapping against the bank?”
Conn started to say that it was just the water, and then stopped, because quite suddenly, the sound was not in the least bit like water lapping, it was like something very different indeed.
Like something creeping down the dark tunnel towards them?
Niall said in a whisper, “You know, there is something,” and Michael said in a trembly kind of voice, “And the shadows are different.”
“How different? Michael, they’re only our shadows,” said Conn. And then, “Or are they?”
Michael shuddered and rubbed his eyes, and Fergus remembered that Michael was very young indeed.
One of the boys said in a whisper, “Fergus, I can hear it as well now,” and Fergus saw that they could all hear it, and that they were all frightened of it. He looked quickly about him. The great dark River stretched endlessly before them, but to their left the mountain tunnel snaked away a little. Was there a way out there? But we have to cross the River! thought Fergus wildly. To return to the world, we have to cross it! And then he saw that the River wound its way into the tunnel as well, a small tributary, and he thought that at least it would take them away from whatever was coming steadily towards them in the dark, and at least they would be going somewhere, and to go somewhere was surely better than standing here, irresolute, at the mercy of whatever was creeping down the tunnel.
He marshalled the boys quickly into single file again, for the tunnel was extremely narrow. And to fall into the River would mean the end of everything. Or would it? I can’t decide, thought Fergus. I don’t know if we are meant to plunge into it, or what we are meant to do. But I think we have to keep moving, and I think we have to move away from the creeping stealthy thing that I can hear.
The sounds were closer to them now, and Fergus tilted his head and listened, trying to identify the sounds. It was certainly not something walking, nor was it anything crawling. Something familiar, but something alien. Something that made you see the rhythmic dip of slender wooden paddles, and that made you see the tendrils of slimy weed that you dredged up as you went; the feeling of skimming over water quickly and effortlessly … And then he knew what it was.
Oars. The scull of oars coming down the River tunnels towards them.
Something was rowing a boat along the dark underground caverns and something was beginning to cast a huge shadow on the cave walls, and that something would very shortly be in the cavern with them …
“Quickly,” said Fergus. “Along here! All hold hands. And on no account slip …” Because to do so will mean that you will be dragged down into the glinting lights, and you will become another light, and you will be soulless once more, and you will be beyond the reach of any help …
And then, as they moved into the tunnel, the waterlight rippling all about them, the green shadows everywhere, they heard, quite clearly, the steady scull of oars.
The Ferryman was coming towards them.
*
There was a terrible, never-to-be-forgotten moment, when they first saw his shadow on the cave wall, and when they heard the soft splashing of the oars. The River seemed to heave, and there was a soft sighing sound, as if all the captured souls could hear and see and were afraid. The shadow loomed closer, and as they stared they saw a shape, hooded and cloaked, huge and thin and towering and hungry, standing in some kind of small craft, propelling it across the dark waters … The Ferryman, travelling through the shadowy underworld of his domain, searching for human souls to drag beneath the River …
Fergus drew in a deep breath, and said in a low urgent voice, “Quickly! There is no time to be lost! We must run!” And then they were all running, down into the warren of caves and passages, away from the approaching creature that rowed swiftly and silently on the terrible River of Souls, away into the safe, stifling darkness.
Fergus said, “Keep to the shoreline! We must not lose the River’s path! And we must not be separated for an instant! Link hands now!” And he half pulled, half forced them along, hearing the pounding of their feet on the hard rocky shore of the River, unable to tell whether the pounding was, after all, his own heartbeat.
They could see the way better than he had expected. Light shimmered and cascaded on the waters and the tunnels were becoming wider. But Fergus thought they might easily wander like this for ever, tired and hungry and lost, playing a grisly game of hide and seek with the Ferryman, who would cert
ainly know they were here, and who would almost as surely set traps and lie in wait, and suddenly appear, barring their way, gathering them into his net, pulling them down beneath the waters …
Half-formed ideas of constructing some kind of raft raced through his mind, because he knew that to re-enter the world they must cross the River, but he could see no means of doing it; there was no driftwood to be seen and no rope and, in any case, there were too many of them. They must somehow outrun the Ferryman and find a safe place to ford the River.
They were still running, hands linked, the older ones helping the smaller; Fergus thought they had left the Ferryman behind now, but they dared not stop to see. They must go on, until they could come to other caves, until they could come to daylight and to the outside world. Once Conn gasped out, “I believe we are inside a mountain,” and once Michael squeaked because his stockinged feet had trodden on a sharp stone, but the children were silent, round-eyed with fear, ready to obey Fergus unquestioningly.
Niall, whose ears were sharp, stopped at the intersection of two tunnels and said, “Listen.”
“Oars? The Ferryman?”
“No,” said Niall, puzzled. “No, I think we have left him behind.”
“What is it, then?” said Fergus. “Niall, what can you hear?”
“It sounds like the ticking of a clock,” said Niall, and they all stopped and listened, and Fergus thought that Niall was right; the sound was exactly like a clock ticking.
“But probably it is just water dripping somewhere,” he said, but he lingered, because just for a second, there had been the sure impression of an immense clock, ticking slowly and inexorably closer to midnight, showing Time running out, like grains of sand trickling away through someone’s hands …
And although they had grown accustomed to the River sounds now, they were beginning to hear other noises; muffled and distant, but occasionally recognisable. Snatches of music. Fragments of roaring sounds, the clanking of some kind of machinery.
Fergus stopped and tilted his head, and remembered that the River of Souls was the bridge between all the worlds, and thought, Are we hearing other worlds now? Are we hearing the past and the future and all the unborn worlds and all the worlds born and died and forgotten?
Grating sounds, the harsh blaring of some kind of instrument. A feeling of smoke and dirt and heat and of impatience to be moving. Fergus found this curious, and he half closed his eyes, to listen more intently and, for a breathspace, for the span of a heartbeat, there was an image of metal oblongs that could travel at immense speed, and of people-hundreds of people — inside them, somehow propelling the oblongs along a great highroad. Towering buildings and brilliant lights, and the smell of grease and smoke, and the drone and the whirr of grating metal. And then the image was gone, and the sounds melted, and there was nothing but the soft waterlight, and there was no image other than the shadow of the Ferryman silently stalking them along the darkling waters.
And then Conn said, “There’s a light ahead,” and Fergus froze and motioned the children into the lee of the rock.
The faint warm light came bobbing into view, silhouetting three shapes, and Fergus felt his heart bound in his breast.
Directly ahead of them were Fael-Inis and Taliesin, and between them was a small slender girl with copper-red hair.
*
Fergus ran to them at once and he embraced Taliesin and felt tears streaming down his face, and knew he was being absurd, and thought he was probably being emotional, and could not help it and did not care.
Taliesin said, “Dear me, such emotion. Fergus, I am overwhelmed.” But his voice was not entirely steady, and he gripped Fergus’s hands with fingers that were glad and clutching. His eyes were over-bright, and Fergus found himself unable to speak.
Fael-Inis said, half to himself, “Out of the land of the sky and out of the House of Bondage,” and Fergus turned to him at last, and held out his hands, and Fael-Inis took them, and Fergus felt a warm glow and the sensation of silk being drawn gently across his mind, soothing out pain.
“We welcome you back, Fergus,” said Fael-Inis, and now there was affection in his voice, and Fergus felt a lump in his throat and the tears begin again, and was furious, and then did not care.
Taliesin, using the exchange of courtesies between Fergus and Annabel as a shield against the flood of emotion that had swept over him on seeing Fergus, knew at once that something terrible and irrevocable and unbearably sad had happened to Fergus inside the Prison of Hostages. He watched as Fergus took Annabel’s hands, and saw the shadows in Fergus’s eyes, and thought, Whatever has happened to him in that place — and perhaps one day he will talk about it — it has changed him completely and for good. He is still the great leader and the soldier, thought Taliesin, but some quality that was there before has been stolen. The scholar is still there, thought Taliesin, but I believe that the poet has gone.
Fergus, greeting Annabel, hearing the hasty introduction, saw at once that here was no moderate, agreeable formalist, but a lady who had certainly questioned the shibboleths and the standards of whatever world she had come from. And even like this, even in the rush of finding Taliesin and Fael-Inis, even with the creeping danger following them along the River tunnel, he recognised that there was intelligence and perception in her eyes, and defiance in the tilt of her head. But he grinned to himself, and he wondered what Fael-Inis thought of her, and thought as well that Taliesin might well find that he had a wildcat by the tail. And foresaw a few battles ahead for these two, and was pleased for Taliesin, who certainly would not have wanted his lady to be otherwise.
Annabel took the hand that Fergus held out, and thought, Well, so here is another of the people from Taliesin’s world! And saw, as Taliesin had seen, the warrior and the scholar, and guessed that there had once been a lover and a poet, but that these last two had somehow vanished for good. But she felt at once the air of authority that Fergus carried without realising he carried it, and trusted him even before she saw that Taliesin trusted him, and began to feel even more hopeful about their chances of defeating the Horsemen and the Apocalypse.
Fael-Inis was looking at the boys, who had stood rather silently on the edge of it all, not liking to intrude. And then Conn stepped forward rather hesitantly, and smiled cautiously at Fael-Inis, and a curious gentleness stole over Fael-Inis’s face. “The little lost ones,” he said softly. “The murdered innocents. Fergus, you have brought them out.” And then, without warning, he turned and raised his hand. A great silence fell, and Taliesin and Fergus half turned because they both heard the same thing.
“Yes,” said Fael-Inis, “yes, you hear it, Mortals. The Horsemen are coming nearer.
“And the Clock is ticking faster.”
*
None of the others could afterwards quite explain what happened next.
Fael-Inis raised his right hand and described an arc through the air. As he did so, a line of pure golden light followed his hand. Sparks soared, and then the radiance seemed to descend on the children, like stardust, like sprinklings of tiny slivers of fire, or like … Yes, thought Taliesin, like the Time Fire. He is bestowing on them the Time Fire.
The power and the light and the speed …
The boys did not immediately react, but Fergus saw an odd look come over them, and he thought it was as if something deep and mystical had been wakened in them so that they could not for the moment focus on anything. Annabel, who had been watching closely, thought it was as if an inner fire had been lit, or as if they had been shown something marvellous and given some undreamed-of power.
Fael-Inis stood for a moment looking at the boys, seeing, thought Annabel, the flaring up of the strange power he had given them. And then he said softly, “We are going to save the world, children.” And held out his hands, and light streamed outwards from him. “Come,” he said. “Come with me now, for the minutes are dying. Come, children, for the Horsemen are almost upon us.” He turned, and seemed to shimmer and blur. Annabel rubbed
her eyes and wondered if he was still there, only she knew he was, because the light was pouring ahead of them, down the darkest of the tunnels. He was an arrow of pure light and speed, beautiful and exotic and unstoppable.
The children were with him, they were easily keeping pace, and there was the same brilliance about them, so that they were all bathed in luminescence. Gold light flew from their heels, sending cascades of fire across the dark River to their right. Taliesin and Fergus and Annabel, linking hands, running to keep up, shared a thought: Now we are truly seeing the real creature, the angel of fire and speed who rides the world and travels in and out of Time at will, and whom no Mortal can touch.
They could hear the Horsemen thudding after them now; Fergus hesitated, and turned to look back, and Taliesin pulled him on.
“The Horsemen — the Heralds! Fergus, we dare not let them catch us —” he shouted, and Fergus, his mind whirling and his senses swimming, understood that the Four Horsemen were riding into the world, ready to unleash the Beast Apocalypse.
Their leg muscles were protesting and their eyes were blinded with the effort of following the brilliant light. But Fael-Inis was darting ahead with the children, pouring out seamless fountains of radiance, like wildfire on Samain, like a blazing forest fire, like a beacon, like the northern lights on a clear night sky …
Fantastical shadows leaped and danced and gibbered from the dark corners, but Fael-Inis and the boys seemed tireless. And somehow, thought Annabel, somehow we are keeping up. Somehow we are getting closer to the Clock.
Fergus, at the rear, could feel the Horsemen on their heels, and he knew that the immense threat Fael-Inis had intended to turn back was nearly upon them. The ground was shuddering beneath the pounding hoofs, and he could smell the warm, dry, stable smell. He glanced back over his shoulder, and caught a darting shadow. But if only they could get through the tunnels, if only they could reach a place of sanctuary. If only they could outrun the Ferryman and defeat the Horsemen … And I was so nearly too late, he thought. If we had not broken out of the Prison when we did, if I had not submitted to the punishment pronounced by the Stone Judges, perhaps we should not have been here, and perhaps the Horsemen would already have let in the Apocalypse …