Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  * * *

  ‘It wasn’t,’ said Floy, in the privacy of their bed-chamber, ‘a request.’

  ‘An order,’ said Fenella, nodding.

  ‘Carry out this task, while we keep your lady hostage,’ said Snodgrass. ‘They’ve locked us in again, you know.’

  ‘I do know,’ said Floy, his eyes glinting angrily. ‘It was politely done — ’

  ‘That one they call Goll the Gorm,’ nodded Snodgrass. ‘I don’t call him polite; in a pig’s ear I don’t.’ He frowned and said, ‘You know, dear boy, I think we may have to do what they want.’

  ‘Go to this place — what do they call it? the Fire Court -and take the proposals for the marriage of Inchbad,’ said Floy.

  ‘Yes. But that,’ said Snodgrass, worried, ‘would mean leaving Fenella here.’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ said Floy, staring at his sister. She was listening intently and her eyes were thoughtful, as if she might be toying with some idea of her own. It was unthinkable that they should leave Fenella here at the mercy of the giants. ‘We’ll have to find a way of taking Fenella with us,’ he said.

  Fenella, leaning forward eagerly, said, ‘But listen, the journey to the Fire Court takes you past the Robemaker’s Workshops. We heard them all say so. It’s the very thing we’ve been waiting to hear.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Floy. ‘But it’s too high a price.’

  ‘It sounds rather fearsome,’ said Fenella, slowly, ‘to be left here with the giants. But I truly think we can’t miss the chance of getting there.’

  ‘Not if it means us going off without you,’ said Snodgrass. ‘We can’t possibly do that.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re going to be given any choice in the matter,’ said Floy, rather grimly. ‘Goibniu said they’d send the gatekeeper-what’s his name? Balor-along with us.’ He looked at them. ‘That wasn’t simply to show us the way,’ he said. ‘They could give us maps and we could find the way perfectly easily. It was to make sure we didn’t run away. Balor’s coming as a guard.’

  ‘To bring us back,’ nodded Snodgrass.

  ‘But of course we’d come back for Fenella,’ said Floy. ‘Don’t they think we would?’

  ‘They can’t know. It’s this question of different beliefs and different loyalties,’ said Snodgrass. ‘If it wasn’t all so dangerous, I’d almost be finding it interesting, you know.’

  ‘Goibniu suggested that I could mark the evenings by telling them tales of our travels,’ Fenella said, remembering. ‘One tale each night. I don’t know how long I can keep that up,’ said Fenella. ‘But I think I could keep it going for quite a while. I could tell them about Renascia to begin with.’ She glanced at the other two. ‘Doesn’t it seem an awfully long way away, now?’

  ‘Worlds and aeons,’ said Floy, softly.

  ‘Shall we miss it when we have time?’ said Fenella, a bit wistfully. ‘I do think I’d like to miss it. It seems so — so callous not to be thinking about it and wondering what happened to it.’

  ‘We’ll mourn for it when we have time,’ said Floy, touching her hand, and Fenella looked at him gratefully, because that was exactly what she had been feeling. Of course they would mourn for Renascia and remember all of the good things about it, only just now they had other things to concentrate on.

  ‘I’ll spin the Gruagach some tales,’ she said now, frowning. ‘Renascia and as much as I can remember of Earth legends and perhaps something about the Dark Lodestar as well.’

  ‘Scheherezade,’ nodded Snodgrass. ‘The lady-well, she wasn’t a lady at all, really, but she saved her life by telling exotic tales to her captors. She spun it out for years.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ said Fenella. ‘It’s been done before and it can be done again.’

  ‘But look here,’ said Floy, ‘you won’t have to do it, because we’ll find a way of taking you with us.’

  ‘As if we’d leave you here on your own,’ said Snodgrass, clicking his tongue at the very idea.

  ‘I think you’ll have to,’ said Fenella, who found the idea completely appalling, but who was trying to be practical and sensible and make it sound safe for them to go so that they could get Nuadu. ‘Also — ’ She stopped and looked up, and Snodgrass said, ‘Someone’s coming.’

  ‘The Gruagach?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  It was not the Gruagach, but Caspar, who had come quietly along to their rooms when the giants were taking their midday snooze.

  ‘They always do,’ he explained, unlocking the door and coming in cautiously. ‘It’s the one time when Tara becomes almost quiet. Could I sit down? I’ve thought of a plan.’

  The three travellers looked at one another and then Floy said, ‘Sit down.’

  ‘It isn’t brilliant,’ said Caspar, ‘I’d have to say it isn’t brilliant or clever or even very subtle. But it might work.’

  He looked at them, his head on one side, and Floy said, ‘Do go on.’

  Caspar said impatiently, ‘Oh, for goodness' sake, Floy! Do I look like the sort of person who consorts with giants!’ He leaned forward. ‘I don’t know where you’re from,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to know. I’ve got enough to worry about without wondering if you’re from the Ancient Past or the Distant Future, or somewhere quite different altogether. It’s your business,’ said Caspar firmly. ‘But I do know that the Gruagach have only one use for Humans and if you stay here long enough you’ll find out what that is. Into the dungeons and then onto the Fidchell board,’ said Caspar, tucking his chins into his neck and looking solemn. ‘And it’s a nasty end, that one.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Floy.

  ‘Well, I’ve had enough of it,’ said Caspar, looking plumply mutinous. ‘I’ve had enough of hunting down Humans for them to play their grisly games with! It’s — it’s little short of traitorous,’ he said. ‘And I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going to do what you said; walk out of Tara and hide.’

  ‘Well?’ said Floy, sending a warning glance to the other two.

  ‘You’ll have to go to the Fire Court with Balor,’ said Caspar, earnestly. ‘You do know that, don’t you? If you don’t they’ll certainly have you all for supper.’

  ‘What about Fenella?’

  ‘Fenella can follow you in a day’s time.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll bring her,’ said Caspar, and sat back and regarded them with the plump pleasure of a person who has reached a final decision.

  It took longer than he had expected to persuade Floy to agree. Floy was suspicious and Caspar did not really blame him for that.

  ‘I don’t blame you one little bit,’ he said, earnestly trying to win them over. ‘But you can’t stay here, that’s for sure.’

  Floy said, slowly, ‘If Snodgrass and I were to agree to it — ’ He stopped and Caspar said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘How long would the journey take? And what sort of things might we have to encounter on the road?’

  As to that, Caspar had no definite information. He thought it would certainly be a couple of days’ journey to the Fire Court — the giants would be sure to know, he said, because they had already sent emissaries with the marriage proposal. But he thought it could not be more than a couple of days.

  ‘Fenella and I would set out a day later,’ he said, looking at Fenella and thinking that she was rather a nice sort of companion to be having on a journey. Probably she would have a good few stories to tell about the world they had come from. Caspar would quite enjoy hearing about that.

  Floy said, very carefully, ‘Could you show us the route?’ and Fenella looked up, as if, thought Caspar, she had heard something in Floy’s voice that the rest of them had not heard. But he thought it a reasonable request to ask for a route and he took himself away to Tara’s great map room to procure maps for them. He did this quite openly, because if anybody asked where he was going, he would say he was finding out the route to the Fire Court for Floy and Snodgrass’s journey. It was nice to be able to tell the complete truth fo
r once.

  But the only person he met was Balor, on his daily forage to the wine store during the Gruagach’s afternoon snooze, to replenish his secret stock of ale and mead, which had been sadly depleted with all these unexpected visitors to Tara. Balor did not grudge offering guests a mite of good wine, because it was only polite, but there was no denying it made inroads on your hoard. And if he had to set out on this nonsensical journey to the Fire Court with the Humans, it would be as well to just stock up a bit for his return.

  They spread the maps on the floor of the larger of the two bed-chambers and Caspar pointed with a podgy finger to the Fire Country where Reflection had set up her Court.

  ‘It’s on the edges of Fael-Inis’s country,’ he said, ‘and we all know why.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Caspar patiently, but wondering where these three had come from, for goodness’ sake, ‘because Reflection once had a bit of a — well, more than a bit really … And they do say that Flame is very like him.’ He eyed the three travellers a bit hesitantly.

  Floy said, ‘Do you mean that Reflection and Fael-Inis were once lovers?’ and Caspar, hugely relieved, said, ‘Well, so they say.’ He glanced over his shoulder and Snodgrass, who loved gossip, glanced over his as well, because you never knew who might be listening in an enchanted castle.

  ‘They do say,’ said Caspar thrillingly, ‘that she pursued him for positively centuries, until he gave in, purely to get her out of his way. He’s elusive, you see,’ explained Caspar earnestly. ‘You never know quite when you’ve got him.

  Well, that’s always supposing you can get him in the first place, because the number of people who have actually seen him, you can count on one hand.’ He paused for breath and regarded them expectantly.

  But Floy said, in an expressionless tone, ‘Do go on,’ and Caspar looked at Floy doubtfully, because he was not altogether sure of Floy yet and he had the feeling that Floy might very well be thinking and assessing and generally not revealing all his feelings. And so Caspar, who thought he could be as reserved as the next man, merely said, ‘Oh, he’s a strange one, Fael-Inis. A bit of a fly-by-night.’ And returned to charting the journey to the Fire Court.

  Fenella, who had never seen a map quite like this one, had curled up on the floor to listen. The road to the Fire Court looked quite straightforward really; it seemed as if you had to go past a large lake and on down a narrow, windy mountain road with houses dotted on each side. Floy had asked about dangers and what they might expect to encounter, but Fenella did not think it looked especially dangerous.

  ‘Well, it isn’t dangerous precisely,’ said Caspar. He hesitated and tapped the map with his finger. ‘Or, at least it isn’t so long as we avoid that bit of road.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, they do say,’ said Caspar, and stopped and looked at them again. ‘They do say that it’s there that the Robemaker has his Workshops.

  ‘And the Robemaker’s Workshops,’ said Caspar, shuddering, ‘are the worst place in the world.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The Purple Hour was descending as the Robemaker thrust Nuadu Airgetlam before him down the final stretch of road that led to the grisly Workshops.

  Nuadu, aching in every bone, the lower part of his face constrained within the harsh red mask fashioned from the Robemaker’s ropes of light, had not made a sound. He thought that the Robemaker was waiting for him to do so; perhaps somehow to indicate that he would ask for mercy, but he had done nothing. He could not speak and he would not make any gesture that would show weakness. He would, somehow, behave as the true Wolfprinces would have behaved in such a situation. He would behave as his mother’s people would have behaved. And so he walked quite calmly and very nearly leisuredly before his captor. And although the Robemaker lashed out at him from time to time with the thin, cruel rope-lights, he managed not to flinch.

  He had some idea of what was ahead of him, for he knew the terrible tales about the Robemaker’s Workshops. He knew it was unlikely that he would ever see the true Ireland again because he was being taken to the place that many people believed to be one of the Gateways to the Dark Ireland. Certainly, now, he would never see inside Tara. He could think, with a brief twist of the old cynicism, that he had never seen inside Tara anyway and that he could not miss what he had never had.

  But he did miss it; he thought he had been born homesick; he certainly thought he had spent most of his life waiting and longing and aching for the Bright Palace where his mother’s people had quarrelled and laughed and made love and war, and where the charming ruthless Wolfkings had woven Ireland’s history. But he had never seen Tara; he had been abandoned at birth, he had been flung out by the King, who would have none of his Queen’s bastard wolfson at his Court.

  Finally, Nuadu had found his way to the strange twilight community of the Wolfwood; the place that gave shelter to the half-breeds: the bastard sons of Royal Houses, the creatures who were not possessed of sufficient Beastblood to be acknowledged at Tara, but yet were not entirely Human. Creatures welcome in neither world, he had thought, bitterly. We were all of us outcasts; we were all of us flung out by the Lords of Tara, who were jealous of their lineage and protective of their inheritance.

  These half-breed mongrel creatures had acknowledged Nuadu as an aristocrat; a bastard but still a Wolf-prince, royal through his mother’s noble blood. They had made him their leader and Nuadu, cynical and bitter against his own kind, had thought that for all he was a base-born prince, still he had a Court of a kind and subjects of a sort.

  When the Gruagach had come storming down from the Northern Wastes and attacked Tara and stolen away the Wolfking’s son, Tara’s heir, the people of the halfworld of the forest had vanished, afraid and timid. They had wanted no part of the terror and the bloodshed, and they had hidden in the mountains and the caves and the remote Northern Isles. Perhaps, when the battles were over and Ireland was whole once more, they would return, but perhaps they would simply remain in the hill-farms and the distant mountains, forging their own cultures, making their own legends, weaving their strange secret stories into the fabric of Ireland’s history.

  But Nuadu had ridden out for the King and for the captured half-brother he had never known. He had ridden out for his mother’s people as well, and finally, he had joined with the people of the Court, ‘For,’ he had thought, ‘it is my people, my half-brother the Gruagach seek to drive out.’ He had thought he had not cared what became of him in the battle and he had thought that, when it was over, he would return to the Wolfwood and that the creatures amongst whom he had lived would return, also.

  But the Wolfking had been killed and the prince imprisoned inside the Dark Realm. The giants had taken Tara for their own and when Tealtaoich and the others had fled to the Forest Court, Nuadu had gone with them, neither quite one of them nor quite not one of them, but feeling a cautious kinship with them and discovering, with cynical amusement, that they were looking to him to lead them back.

  ‘After all,’ Tealtaoich had said silkily, ‘you may be a bastard, my friend, but you are a High Queen’s bastard and you were sired by a Wolf. You have the blood of the Wolves of Tara and there is no question but that it makes you a Wolfprince.’ The green eyes had been steady. ‘You have a claim on Tara,’ said Tealtaoich. ‘You are the heir presumptive.’

  ‘If we are honest, you have far more right to Tara than any of us,’ put in Oisin.

  ‘Even though we shall not necessarily admit it,’ said Feradach and Nuadu had seen that they would serve even a bastard scion of the Wolfline before any other creature.

  And for all that, I have fallen into the hands of the Robemaker, he thought angrily. I am as much a captive as my half-brother. Nuadu knew that the Robemaker would put him to the treadmills; that he would be forced to work at powering the Silver Looms to weave the Robemaker’s enchantments. He would have said that he was as courageous as most, but he knew that no one ever escaped from the Workshops. People lived and died th
ere; they did not grow old there, because no one could live for very long in the Robemaker’s hands. And once their physical usefulness was at an end, the Robemaker tore out the souls of his slaves and carried them to the Soul Eaters in the Cruachan Cavern, which some believed were the Gates of Hell. Well, at least, he thought, with a glimmer of the old wry humour, at least I shall witness things the legitimate Wolfprinces did not.

  They were nearing the Workshops now and Nuadu could see, in a saucer-shaped dip, the dull red glow rising into the night sky.

  ‘The furnaces,’ said the Robemaker, in his dreadful, diseased voice. ‘My creatures stoke them and work the treadmills, and so the Silver Looms are never allowed to be still.’

  ‘My creatures … ’And now I am one of them, Nuadu thought. The crimson rope-lights still held him, so that he was forced to go on down the slope until they stood before the terrible dwelling place of the necromancer.

  Nuadu stopped and the Robemaker stopped with him, as if he might be saying: well, Wolfprince? Savour this last moment out in the world. Look your fill on my domain for, once inside, you will never come out.

  ‘Not until you are useless and flayed and bent,’ said the Robemaker softly and Nuadu knew that his thoughts had been heard with ease. ‘Not until the skin is hanging from your back and your thighs in strips and your flesh is withered from the heat and your sight is dimmed from the dry fire of the furnaces.’

  The Workshops were a huddle of black, rather low structures; made of some kind of harsh, dark stone. Here and there were archways in the stone and through the archways, low doors. The windows were narrow and mean-looking, but from each one glowed the dull red fire from the terrible furnaces.

  And everywhere, at every comer, within every stone and door and roof was the immense, thrumming power of the Silver Looms.

  It poured out into the still night and Nuadu shivered, because he knew it for the evil magic of the Dark Ireland; the ancient, malevolent enchantment of the necromancers. Within the Wolfwood he had known and experienced the strong pure magic of his people; the music of the sidh and, later, the beautiful wild bewitchment of the stirring Tree Spirits. He had inherited, as well, a thin vein of sorcery of his own; a little from his mother, but a great deal from his father the Wolf. He would have said that he had as reasonable an acquaintance with sorcery as anyone in Ireland.