Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  They were almost upon the creature now, and she had wheeled about to face them, crimson light still sparking from her claws. Fergus thought that the pure bright Time Fire was somehow deflecting the crimson sparks, and he certainly thought that the dark angry flames were flying upwards harmlessly and melting into the night sky over the Palace. And then they were near enough to see the Sensleibhe’s evil grinning eyes, and Fergus remembered how she had lured Conn and the boys into her room inside the mountain, and he remembered the grisly spinning wheel with the shreds of human flesh and the parings of human nails and the skin and the gristle and bone, and fierce anger filled him up. As the Chariot swerved, he leaned forward over the side and drove his sword hard into the Sensleibhe’s breast.

  There was a piercing shriek and a splitting sound, and the thing that had been the Sensleibhe, the leader of the Guardians, the Old Woman of the Mountains who lured children to a firelit room and killed them and wove them into cloth, seemed to soften and collapse. Reflection, from her place of safety high on a ridge of rock, screamed and drew back, and then Fergus withdrew his sword and thrust it into the Sensleibhe again. There was a dreadful pulpy feeling, as if he had stabbed into soft, rotten fruit. Liquid, mushy, putrescent…

  The Sensleibhe fell to her knees, and they saw her clawed feet grip the ground in a death agony. Her body began to dry and shrink, and she grew older and older. At last, she was a tiny mummified old woman, wizened and monkeylike, clutching at the air and struggling for breath. And then even that faded, and she was a heap of brown flesh adhering to stick-like bones, and then the bones themselves crumbled into grey dust. The dust stirred and blew away and then there was nothing at all.

  Reflection seemed to shimmer and blur, and then they caught the tail-end of silvery robes as she whipped about.

  “She is escaping!” cried Fergus, both hands grasping his sword. “Fael-Inis, we cannot let her go!” He turned to where Fael-Inis was reining in the salamanders, and saw the fiery golden eyes grow suddenly gentle.

  “Let her go, Fergus,” he said. “Without her hell-sisters she is no longer such a very dreadful threat.” And then, in a different voice, “Poor Aife,” said the rebel angel, softly. “She will never achieve true greatness.” And then, appearing to give himself a shake, “And you saw how the nightmare creatures vanished the minute the Cloak slid from her.” With one hand, he gestured to the scene before them, which was scattered with wounded and dead, but which was now free from the gruesome terrible army of creatures Aife had called up with the Nightcloak’s aid.

  “Well, Captain?” said Fael-Inis, the delight glowing in his eyes. “Shall we advance to the Bright Palace?”

  *

  To Annabel, what happened next was the most remarkable thing of all the remarkable things that had yet happened to her in this beautiful but sinister world. Every time something new came along, she had thought, That is the ultimate surprise. That is the pinnacle, the zenith. Nothing can surpass that. And then — sometimes only minutes later — something did surpass it.

  But nothing would ever surpass that extraordinary walk through the halls of the Ancient Palace of the High Kings and Queens of Ireland.

  Tara, the shining city, the bright citadel …

  Fael-Inis and Fergus had come back to the waiting armies after the Sensleibhe had been slain. Annabel had found the Sensleibhe’s death rather terrible, and she had had to remind herself quite sharply about how Conn and Niall and Michael and the other boys had been lured into that sinister firelit room, so that they could be killed and then woven on the Sensleibhe’s grisly spinning wheel.

  Fergus had been swift and efficient and quite ruthless in deploying his army. Raynor had been with him, and Raynor had been just as swift and efficient, and although Annabel did not think that Raynor was wholly ruthless, she thought she would not like to make an enemy of him. She was getting to know the Beastline people quite well now — probably there was nothing quite like going through immense danger for bringing you close to somebody — but Raynor was still a rather distant figure. Annabel, studying him, listening to the stories of the Grail Castle and of the strange lost Beastline creatures who had lived there in exile, and of Raynor who had been their leader, found herself regarding him with something akin to reverence. Bee had told her how close Grainne and Raynor had become, and how they were all hoping that Grainne would take Raynor as consort, and Annabel was becoming more and more intrigued by Grainne. She thought that someone who could be loved by Raynor must be extremely special, and she began to hope very strenuously that they would rescue Grainne from Medoc.

  Fergus and Raynor had sorted the armies out now, and made sure that the wounded were tended, and that the dead would be taken to be prepared for ceremonial burial after the battle.

  At last, the two of them stood looking at one another, and Fergus said with sudden formality, “Will you be at my side when we enter the Sun Chamber?” and Raynor paused for only a breathspace before replying, “It will be my honour, Captain.”

  Fergus studied him for a moment, and then, “She will wish you to be there,” he said, and there was a note of sadness in his voice now, so that those in earshot — which was very nearly everybody — knew that Fergus was deliberately and publicly relinquishing any claim he had ever had to the Queen. Cathbad was quite affected by this, and had to blow his nose rather vigorously, and retired to the rear, where he began to plan the feast to celebrate the Queen’s betrothal to Raynor.

  “Premature,” said Fintan, a realist.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Cathbad, who adored betrothals and weddings and christenings.

  “We’ve got to rescue her first,” said Cermait.

  “We’ve got to get past Medoc first,” said Fintan. “I suppose we are going in, are we? They seem to be taking a terrible long time over it.”

  But then Fergus leapt on to a sharp outcrop, so that he was able to look down on them all, and smiled, and the wind lifted his hair, and the famous reckless we-shall-win look was back in his eyes, and several people began to feel very much better about what was ahead, and everyone began to think that after all they might defeat Medoc and restore the Wolfqueen to Tara.

  Fergus grinned. “Well, my friends! Are we ready?” And then, as a rousing shout of assent came from them, “Then,” said Fergus, “let us advance!” And leapt down from the slope and looked at Fael-Inis and grinned as if to say, How was that? and Fael-Inis grinned back and looked rather like a cat, very composed and amused, and moved into place at Fergus’s side, with Raynor on his left.

  There was still a faint light from the embers of Spectre’s fireballs, and by it Annabel could see that despite the bravery, and despite the rallying speeches, both Fergus and Raynor were white and strained. Raynor’s face was scarred where the fireball had scorched it, and Fergus was smeared with blood — whether his or other people’s, Annabel had no idea. Annabel looked at them both and thought that neither of them could bear to acknowledge that Grainne might be already lost, and then quite suddenly she realised that Fergus and Raynor both knew, with that strange extra sense they possessed, that Grainne still lived.

  But Medoc has her, and we dare not lose any more time …

  They had not, in fact, lost any time at all. They had taken every opportunity and they had not hesitated at all. Even so, Fergus made a careful selection of the ones who would accompany him into the Palace, choosing several lieutenants to bring up the rear, summoning Fintan and Cermait Honeymouth, and beckoning out the Beastline creatures, and Conn and Niall.

  Lastly he turned to where the sidh waited on the outer rim of the scene, and everyone knew that although Fergus could not compel the sidh to accompany them, he would very much like them to do so.

  “He does it well,” murmured Taliesin at Annabel’s side. “Would you say he is almost royal?”

  “Yes,” breathed Annabel, unable to take her eyes from Fergus. “Yes, I would say it.”

  “I also,” said Taliesin. And then, in a different tone, “Look at th
e light.”

  “It’s Fael-Inis,” said Annabel after a moment. “Or it’s the sidh.”

  “It’s more than that,” said Taliesin.

  It was. There was the vivid strong light of the Time Fire, and there was the incandescence that perpetually surrounded Fael-Inis. There was, as well, the cool elvish light of the sidh. “A muted light,” said Annabel, who found the sidh fascinating and terrifying, and who could have listened to their music for ever.

  The light was all of this and none of it. From within the dark hidden heart of Tara, from the place that had for so long been caught and held fast in Medoc’s evil magic, a faint shimmer of luminous colour was appearing. It was as fragile and as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp or the flickering lights over the marshes on a winter’s night, or a string of glow worms deep in the forest. Faint and fragile and elusive, and so uncertain that you had to look twice and then thrice to be sure you had not imagined it.

  But it was there and no one had imagined it, and every person present knew it was there. The light was beginning to burn again in the Bright Palace … Cathbad had to blow his nose all over again, and could not even be cheered by the planning of a banquet for tomorrow night, when they would undoubtedly be sitting in the Sun Chamber, celebrating the restoration of the Wolfqueen.

  Incredulous joy was showing in every face now and, when Fergus turned to summon them to follow him, they fell into place silently.

  Taliesin said softly, “Annabel. Look at the Wolves,” and Annabel, who had been a bit fearful of the Wolves (extremely fearful of them, if she was honest), turned to look and saw the most extraordinary change in them. Until now they had been watchful and rather distant from everyone.

  Fintan had said that they were loners. “They’ll keep their distance,” he had said, and Cermait had said he hoped they would keep their distance, because wasn’t it a well-known fact that only the Royal Line could control them.

  Now, falling into line behind Fergus, the Wolves were obedient and very nearly subservient; their fur was sleek and their eyes were bright with anticipation.

  “Interesting that,” said Fintan thoughtfully, and studied Fergus rather more intently than he had been used to doing.

  Cathbad said it did your heart good to see the Royal Wolves returning to the Palace, and mopped his eyes and said he was that overcome. “I shan’t ever be the same again,” he said, and did not listen when several people said they were very glad to hear it.

  They walked in procession along the avenue of trees, and the great Western Gates of the Palace loomed ahead of them, a great frame beneath which they would pass.

  “Very historic,” said Fintan wisely. “Dear me, these Gates could tell a few tales, well I expect they do tell them, if only we knew how to hear.”

  “They’ll most likely be barred against us, won’t they?” said Cermait.

  But the Gates stood ajar, and again there was the faintest spill of light from within.

  Annabel, at Taliesin’s side, somewhere in the middle of the procession, remembered an echo of something from her own world, something from an old war, she thought, fought and won and recovered from two or even three centuries before she had been born.

  “And the lights went on again all over the world …”

  The lights were coming on again inside Tara, and it was remarkable and beautiful and awe-inspiring and terrifying, and if Medoc was possessed of any shred of feeling at all, he must be seeing it and he must know that his reign of shadow was almost over.

  Fael-Inis stopped at the exact centre of the Western Gates and, making not the smallest ceremony about it, lifted the silver pipes to his lips. Music streamed out into the night and, as Fael-Inis moved into the shadow cast by the Gates, it seemed to the watchers that the music poured out behind them like a foaming wake in an ocean.

  And wherever the music touches, it leaves light, thought Annabel, staring. And even though her own world was growing fainter and dimmer, and even though she did not regret having lost it and never would regret having lost it, still there were the echoes and there were the fragments of memory and drifts of scholarship and literature and learning.

  “Through this house give glimmering light” … “I with the morning’s love have oft made sport” … “Light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure” …

  And then, as if an echo came from both Fergus and Taliesin now, one of the most beautiful and one of the most apposite of them all.

  “Put out the light and then put out the light.

  If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

  I can again thy former light restore.”

  Thy former light … We are restoring the light, thought Annabel, drunk with delight and heady with the beauty and the strength of it all. We are restoring the light to the Bright Palace, and Fael-Inis is sprinkling light everywhere, and the entire Palace is glowing, and soon it will be a beacon of iridescence, and the whole of Ireland will see it, and the whole of Ireland will rejoice.

  Thy former light restored …

  To Fergus, it was joy and peace and home-coming all rolled up into one: If I am never happy again, if I can never know another moment of pure happiness, then at least I am knowing it now, he thought. To be here, like this, to be forcing a path through Medoc’s darkness, to see the darkness part and give way to golden brilliance, to see the lights burning again in the home of my ancestors … He thought he would probably never acknowledge his right and his claim to the Ancient Throne: That is for you, my dear lost love, he thought. But he thought people would probably guess if they had not already done so, and he sent a glance to the Wolves, still padding silently behind him.

  I have not quite the power and the light and the strength, but they have followed me and they have answered me.

  And the light was beginning to glow again. “Through this house give glimmering light …” Fergus, like Annabel, like Taliesin, did not know where the words came from: the past, the future? — but he knew that somewhere, at some time, someone sensitive and gifted and far-seeing had understood about restoring light where there had been darkness, and he knew that someone had visualised with ease a slender radiant creature with molten hair and strange glowing eyes, who was not entirely human, but not quite divine, who could work pure strong magic and who could dart in and out of a shaft of light, and defy the world and challenge all the creeds and all the religions.

  The rebel angel, who walked away from the First Battle, and never declared for either side … But he has declared for us, thought Fergus. He has fought this battle with us and for us, and I believe that because of him we shall now defeat Medoc and the Twelve Dark Lords.

  Through this house … On and on they went, the music from the silver pipes casting its sprinkling of flame and its pure soft radiance, and Fergus felt Tara, the Shining Palace, the radiant citadel, waking and lightening and singing with joy all about him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Deep within the Sun Chamber, the darkness was heavy and stifling. Grainne could feel the cold stone of the altar beneath her, and she could feel, in more senses than she had ever felt anything in her life, Erin at her side. Medoc stood over them, with the Conablaiche and the Lad of the Skins at his side, and she stared up at them, helpless, knowing that there could be only a few moments left to them.

  She did not think there was any escape. That faint far-off howling, even if it had been the Wolves, had been too distant. The Wolves might reach them — the armies might even reach them — but it would be too late. She and Erin would both die, and their souls would be thrown into the Prison of Hostages, and the Wolfline would be dead for ever.

  And Ireland would be Medoc’s.

  She thought that Medoc heard her thoughts very clearly, for a brief, rather gentle smile touched his lips. And then he said, quite softly, “My dear, even now it is not too late.” Something tender touched his lips. “You are flesh of my flesh,” said Medoc. “You could swear allegiance to me, Grainne.” He reached down and took her hand and, as he did
so, he sent a sliver of light slicing through the cords that bound her to the altar stone.

  “Come,” said Medoc. “Come with me and see, Grainne.”

  He lifted his left arm again, and the Star of Necromancy glinted on his breast, and light poured outwards and Medoc described an oblong on the darkness. At once the oblong took on the outline of an immense Door and, as Grainne caught her breath, the Door opened slowly.

  “The Dark Land,” said Medoc softly. “The Enchanted Realm of the necromancers and the world of the shadow beings. My world, Grainne. The kingdom where I rule absolutely.” He moved, and Grainne, helpless, caught in sudden and terrible fascination, moved with him. The Door was opening wider to admit them, and through it she could see the red-lit land, Medoc’s land, the Dark Realm, the world that her ancestors had for so long striven to keep out.

  And I am entering into it …

  Dark sinuous arms reached out, and slender hands pulled her in. There was a rushing sensation, the feeling of being sucked into a dark narrow tunnel, there was the sense of entering some lightless place, a world where light would never penetrate, where there would never be fields and sunshine and rain and summer afternoons and spring dawns.

  Through the red mists, she could see imp-like creatures, grinning goblin creatures with leering faces and evil eyes. There were writhing shapes, raven-black and smoky, and there was horrid echoing laughter all about her.

  The Wolfqueen entering the Dark Realm …

  Medoc was drawing her farther in now, his hand was holding her hand, and his skin was cool and silky. Ahead of them were fields and lakes of glassy blackness, and beyond that were towering mountains with distant castles, more lonely and more menacing than anything Grainne had ever seen. Paths snaked through the mountains, glowing and sinisterly beckoning, and here and there were clusters of houses, huddled together, and here and there were low-roofed buildings from which came a fiery glow.

  Grainne thought, The Sheds of the Dark Looms! and knew that the red glow was the dreadful effluence, the waste matter from the evil bewitchments spun on the necromancers’ Looms.