by Sarah Rayne
Taliesin, absorbing it all, thought that after all, when you are at the heart, you do not need to be other than silent. Outside the Cavern was roaring confusion; they could hear running footsteps and shouts; great boulders were beginning to fall from the tunnel roofs, and the fires kindled by the Horsemen were roaring through the mountain.
But we have come to the epicentre, thought Taliesin. We are at the eye of the storm and here all is tranquillity.
And then, because he had seen temples and places of worship to various gods, he was strongly aware of a feeling of silent homage. They have looked on the Clock as a kind of god, he thought. A deity. A creature to whom they must pay homage.
The Clock was directly ahead of them, set high on a ledge of rock. The mountain walls gleamed with a faint blue phosphorescence, and on each side of the Clock, candles burned. An altar … A place of homage … Sacrifice.
The Doomsday Clock: the dreadful sinister instrument that had lain for centuries inside the dark mountain, untended, forgotten, and yet continuing to tick. Measuring out the world’s last years, until mankind would die and the world would end, either with a whimper or a bang, it did not really matter … Ticking in the dark by itself, unaided.
Small wonder, thought Taliesin, that the people who had found it had set it on a high altar and lit candles and burned scented logs before it. And then, because he had been trying to visualise the kind of device this strange austere world might have made to measure their time so precisely and so soul-chillingly, he studied the great machine with close attention.
The Clock was bigger than any of them had expected, although Annabel thought they had not really known what to expect. It was massive and oval-shaped, and it gleamed palely, so that it was difficult not to think of it as alive.
The hands were dark and ornate; the figures stood out elaborately against the pale background. Annabel thought they had once been called Roman figures, but could not be sure. And round the face, carved and etched and coloured in sombre greys and blacks, were four figures.
Four figures … An hour ago, we should not have recognised them, thought Taleisin. Now they are burned into our memories for ever.
Plague, Famine, War, and Death … And they are here in the mountain with us … They are raging through the mountain halls, and very soon, at any minute, they will come surging through the tunnels, and they will be in the cavern with us, and when that happens, the hands will touch midnight, and the ticking will stop.
There were thirty seconds to go.
Fergus was already climbing up the steep wall of the cavern, finding footholds where footholds did not exist, reaching for tiny jutting sections of rock, pulling himself up and up, hand over hand, scrabbling for purchase, slipping back sometimes, but going onwards. Taliesin was behind him, slower, but following in Fergus’s path, reaching for crevices in the rock, dislodging flurries of boulders and stones, sending them cascading downwards.
They had to turn the hands back as far as they could.
Annabel, knowing there was nothing she could do, certainly knowing she could not reach the altar ahead of them, stayed where she was, her nails digging into the palms of her hands, her eyes never leaving the Clock. It was dreadful to have to stand here like this, unable to help, hearing every tiny sound in the cavern. There were scufflings and rustlings in the Cavern now; where once it had been silent and somehow watchful, now it seemed as if it was coming alive. Several times, Annabel turned her head because, just for a moment, it had seemed as if there was a movement in one of the low narrow tunnels leading out of the Cavern.
Twenty-five seconds …
The Horsemen were over their heads now, thundering closer with every second. Annabel was vaguely aware of forked light illuminating the tunnel they had just come through. At any minute …
Eighteen seconds …
Fergus was inching higher, and Taliesin was on his heels. There were several feet to go before he gained the ledge. Surely they must get there in time, it was not bearable that they should reach the Clock and then fail.
Is it worse to see it happen? wondered Annabel. Is it going to be worse to know the exact second when the hands reach midnight? Would it have been better to stay in the cell and not know? Of course not!
Tick, tick … Thirteen seconds. I can’t bear it, thought Annabel. I shall turn away and close my eyes. But she did bear it and she did not turn away. She kept her eyes unwaveringly on the Clock.
Fergus and Taliesin were nearly there. They were on the altar at the left-hand side. They would have to crawl along the ledge — Annabel could see how perilously narrow it was. There were more of the narrow tunnels leading away from the ledge. Perhaps that was the way the Drakon people entered the Cavern. If they had been able to find the way through the labyrinth of caves, they would have reached the Clock much quicker.
Ten seconds …
They would not do it. Annabel could see very clearly and very coldly and very surely that they would not do it. If they could have gone faster, if the ledge had been wider and safer, so that they could run … If they could have found another way to the Cavern, through one of the tunnels that opened directly onto the ledge … And if the Clock had not been so vast …
Eight seconds.
And then from one of the narrow tunnels light streamed outwards and there was a flare of movement. Annabel stared, not daring to believe, not daring to hope … In a cascade of pure golden light he was there, and Annabel gasped, and Fergus and Taliesin turned.
He was filled with light and fire, and he was in front of the Clock now, a little to the left of it, and light was pouring from him, and his eyes were glowing with all the radiance he had possessed since before the First Great Battle, with all the power that he could harness; and he was blindingly beautiful and he was invincible, and he would save the world and turn back the Horsemen …
The being of fire and light. The rebel angel who would defy the world and challenge the gods and win. Oh, yes, he will win! cried Annabel in silent joy, He will win. For if anyone can save the world, he can.
Six seconds.
Taliesin and Fergus stayed where they were, their eyes on the slender figure by the Clock, their hearts pounding.
Five seconds …
Light poured from Fael-Inis now, and he drew himself up to his fullest height, and turned to the Clock.
Four seconds …
A bolt of pure light shot from his pointing hand, swift and sure, and hurtled towards the Clock’s face. The cave rocked with the impact, and showers of sparks fell from the roof.
Three seconds.
The watchers were as still as stones. The light exploded against the Clock face, sizzling and smouldering. Cascades of iridescence showered everywhere. The minute hand hesitated.
There was another tick.
Two seconds.
Annabel could hear the Horsemen, she could smell the hot fiery breath of the rushing horses … Has he done it? Has it been strong enough …? A bolt of pure light … Oh, please, please let it have been strong enough, let him have succeeded, for to fail like this would be unbearable, we shall not be able to bear it, it will be the worst agony ever, anywhere …
Light, pure and coruscating, split the Cavern, and there was a great thunderclap somewhere above their heads, and a sheet of flame reared up in the Cavern. The floor rocked beneath their feet, and chasms began to open everywhere. Jagged lightning tore across the Cavern and speared the altar. The Doomsday Clock began to teeter on its narrow ledge, and fireballs of red and orange poured in from the roof. The mountain began to split and great fissures opened up. Annabel saw Taliesin and Fergus lose their precarious hold on the narrow ledge and fall, clutching each other, down the steep side of the rockface.
Annabel thought she was shouting, “The Clock! Has it been turned back? Oh dear God, has it turned back?” but her voice was drowned in the tumult of rocks falling and the mountain splitting, and the screaming of people, and the running of feet and the crackling flames.
; There was one final blinding sheet of light that illuminated the Cavern to painful brilliance, and Annabel and the two men saw with sudden delight Conn and Niall and Michael and the boys come hurtling through the archway, their faces white and smeared with dirt, but their eyes brilliant and alive. Fergus shouted something, and the children went to him in a single movement.
And then the intense vivid light flamed again, and they turned to see Fael-Inis for the last time, outlined clearly above them on the high ledge where the Clock had lain, silhouetted against the dark background of the mountain, his arms outstretched, his head thrown back, fire and light and radiance pouring over him and through him, the flames and the heat and the wild blazing fire engulfing him. And despite the danger, despite the fact that the mountain was tumbling about them, and that everywhere was in flames, and that they might all be about to die, still the three travellers stood still, the children clustered about them, looking at him, seeing him for what he was … the angel of fire and light and speed … the proud, arrogant, lonely rebel destined to walk the earth forever …
There was a wrenching pain and the faint, far-off rushing of chariot wheels, and a whirling, dizzying sensation, and the heat and the smoke seemed to blur and merge, and Annabel closed her eyes against it, because she could not bear it any longer, it was not to be borne …
An immense stillness descended on them, and Annabel opened her eyes and sat up.
Fergus’s voice said in a strange, distant expression, “Tara.”
Tara. The Bright Palace. It lay across the valley from them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Court had made camp in the folds of hillside overlooking the little township of Folaim.
“And a very good camp it is,” said Fintan, pleased. “Very comfortable. Not that you’d have expected it, what with people and animals all together, but it’s working very nicely. I said it would,” said Fintan, who had not said any such thing.
Smoke rose from the Cruithin’s fires: “They keep themselves to themselves,” observed Cathbad; close by, the army had settled itself into groups of threes and fours. Occasionally a snatch of song could be heard; now and then there was a burst of laughter.
“Rude jokes, I daresay,” said Fintan, trying to listen.
Cathbad scurried about with his pots. He was in a great state over the forthcoming banquet. “Because,” he said seriously to Grainne, “it has to be right, Your Majesty. There’s no sense in having a banquet if you don’t have it right. Dear me, what a flurry I shall be in, shan’t I? I wonder now, could we manage a few sod eggs — well, that’s begging your pardon, ma’am, for appearing to sound vulgar, but it’s what they’re called. What you do is you boil the eggs first — some people call it seething them, but I don’t,” said Cathbad. “And then you make a nice little sauce, and if Tybion the Tusk has taken my seething pot to catch trout again, I shall be very angry.
“And then,” said Cathbad, “I’ll make a marigold tart — well, several tarts, really, because one is never enough. And wild duck,” said Cathbad, with solemnity. “My word, there’s nothing to equal a few wild ducks on Samain. Properly stuffed, of course, that goes without saying. I’d better lay a few traps. My word, I am going to be busy.”
Fintan was heard to tell Cermait Honeymouth that they would all of them be as overfed as pigs. They would certainly be too full to indulge in any of the traditional Samain activities.
“You never do anyway,” said Cermait. “Were you thinking of leaping through the bonfire this year? The last time you tried that you got singed in the —”
“No, I did not,” said Fintan loudly, because several of the younger soldiers were listening and it would not do for people to know.
“You couldn’t sit down for a week,” said Cermait with relish.
Rinnal and Bee, and several others of the Beastline, had gone into the forest to gather the wood for the fire.
“Rowan and dry oak,” said Tybion, who was going with them. “And agaric from the birches, to make the needfire. It has to be right” said Tybion, unconsciously echoing Cathbad, who was by this time contemplating borage stuffing for the ducks, which he had not yet thought how to catch, and a first course of bean soup.
“We all like that,” he said, beaming.
“I don’t,” said Fintan.
“It’s warming,” said Cathbad.
“It’s purgative,” said Fintan crossly, and went off to supervise the gathering of the wood, because you could not trust the youngsters to know the proper rituals.
Lugh and Dorrainge had removed themselves from the main body of the camp, so that they could hold a serious and responsible discussion about the exact nature of the celebrations.
They were getting on rather well; Dorrainge was beginning to think that he had misjudged Lugh, who had even broached the question of some kind of sacrifice on the bonfire, which Dorrainge rather supported. He said there was nothing like a sacrifice on a Samain bonfire.
“I rather thought a small pig,” said Lugh, and Dorrainge tucked his chins portentously into his neck, and said, A pig, very possibly. Yes, a pig might serve the purpose nicely. It was necessary, he explained, to appease the forces of evil that stalked the world on Samain. That was why a sacrifice was a good idea.
“On Samain the barriers are lowered,” he explained. “The boundaries that exist between all the worlds are swept aside. The dead may walk, and the Dark Ireland will certainly be very close to us.” He looked at Lugh severely. “Also,” said Dorrainge, “the sidh mounds are flung wide open.”
Lugh said that this was very true indeed, hadn’t he always heard it to be the case, but felt it necessary to point out that they already had the sidh with them, or almost with them, and had they settled about the pig?
“I cannot see that it would hurt,” said Dorrainge, stroking his chin and being careful not to say that he was rather fond of roast pig. If you were contemplating a Samain sacrifice, you should not let your judgement be swayed by the thought of eating it afterwards. It would be very indelicate.
“We could eat the pig afterwards,” said Lugh, and Dorrainge remembered that the Longhands were all famed for their lack of delicacy. He said that it would have to be thought over, but that a sacrifice was certainly worth considering, and passed on to the idea of a few virgins to leap ceremoniously through the bonfire. He hoped that nobody would suggest reviving the Sacred Chant, because he could not remember it. If people knew that the Second Druid of all Ireland did not know the Sacred Chant, they would all start wanting Fribble back and telling each other that Fribble would have known the Sacred Chant backwards — which would have been disastrous of course: to recite the Sacred Chant backwards was simply asking for trouble.
Lugh said that they ought to have the Sacred Chant, pretending not to notice that Dorrainge groaned, and said it would all be altogether grand, and had they established about the sacrificing of the pig yet?
“We’ll do it,” said Dorrainge, who thought you might as well be hanged for a Sacred Chant as for a sacrificial pig, and went off to see about the laying of traps, thus sending Cathbad into a whole new flurry.
Lugh thought he was doing really rather well. He had set up the Samain celebrations, very nearly single-handed, because you could not count Dorrainge, who was now mumbling to himself and making hasty jottings of unpronounceable phrases, and you could not count Fintan or Cermait or Tybion the Tusk, and you certainly could not count Cathbad.
But a good leader knew about delegation, and Lugh was once again going to make use of Tybion. He called him aside, and told Tybion to go on down to the village and invite every single living soul to come up to the bonfire that night, and — Tybion must mind this carefully — to be sure to bring along the children, because it was what Her Majesty wanted, said Lugh, and Tybion, charmed to be of service to his lady in this small way, promised not to miss a single household in Folaim.
Which was precisely what Lugh wanted. It had been a brilliant idea to send out for the children. Even so,
Lugh was not comfortable about what he had to do. It was one thing to agree to kill a child when you were in Medoc’s firelit lair, with Medoc’s powerful personality exerting its influence. It was another thing altogether to contemplate it on a cold hillside with half of Her Majesty’s Court, the army, and the Bloodline, to say nothing of the entire Cruithin contingent. Lugh had even lost some sleep worrying, which was unusual, because as a rule he was a very sound sleeper. It came of a clean conscience, and a tranquil mind.
There was nothing clean or tranquil about pussyfooting around in the dark with the bonfire yards away, trying to see was the Lost Prince, the prophesied Wolfchild, skulking somewhere. Lugh supposed the Lad of the Skins would be around to make sure it was done, but this did not help very much.
The child should be easy to recognise, which was the one straightforward thing about it all. A Wolfchild amidst humans … Yes, it would be easy to spot.
And once he had found it, he would have to kill it.
*
Grainne was very nearly completely happy. She thought she had never known quite such deep contentment, and such well-being.
It was not enough, of course. She had woken the Old Ireland, she had found the Cruithin and the sidh; best of all, she had brought back the Bloodline.
And there was Raynor. Remarkably, incredibly, she had Raynor. Enough happiness there for several lifetimes.
But it would not be enough, not until a Wolfprince again sat in the Sun Chamber, not until a direct descendant of the great Cormac and of Niall of the Nine Hostages again held Tara.
Not until Fergus returned.
The thoughts of Fergus were still a bruise on her heart; an ache that had not yet quite left her. The knowledge that he might be dead, that he might be lost to her forever, somewhere in a distant and alien Future, was scarcely bearable. Was he safe? She thought he was, for, thought Grainne, how could he not be safe, and I not know? It seemed a long time ago now, those far-off nights and those misty mornings. I know it happened, thought Grainne, drowsy in the afternoon sun, watching the Court and the army prepare for the evening’s celebrations; I know it happened, and I know it happened to me. But I think that I am seeing it from a distance, through a glass darkly, behind a veil …