by Sarah Rayne
But out here, on the high road, it was difficult to recall the purple and blue shadows and the firelight and the long oak table where they had all taken supper. It was very hard indeed to believe she had walked in there with a wolf creature and that he had drawn her down onto the forest floor and made love to her … I won’t think about it, said Fenella firmly. I’ll think instead about meeting up with Floy and Snodgrass and finding the Fire Court. Yes, that was a much better way to think.
But the Wolfwood was not entirely in darkness. As they rode cautiously along, Fenella caught glimpses of movement in between the trees. Several times, there was the brilliant smudgy turquoise streak of the sidh and, more than once, the impression of gold and green and amber beings, neither quite human nor quite woodland. Tree Spirits? Oh I do hope so, thought Fenella, peering into the forest depths, trying to make out the shapes more clearly. As they skirted the forest and came out on to a stretch of road fringed by slender copper beeches, Fenella had the feeling of something deep and ancient and strong moving all about them. The Dryads and the Naiads waking? But then the moon slid behind a cloud and the images vanished and Fenella thought that perhaps she had been mistaken.
She turned to say something about this to Caspar and then stopped and listened, because now — yes, surely — there was the faint eerily beautiful singing of the sidh.
‘Be wary of the sidh,' said Caspar as they skirted the Wolfwood. ‘And be very wary indeed of their music. They are greedy for Humans, the sidh, and if they can once trap you with their music they will carry you down to the caves beneath the sea and steal one of your five senses and tear out your soul.’
But Fenella thought the sounds and the movements were not all the sidh. Here and there, they caught sight of a fluid red-gold figure in between the trees and once a huge oak tree seemed to bend forward as if inclining its head to inspect them. Delight rose in her, for surely these were Tree Spirits.
They did not stop to rest, because Caspar thought they should put as much distance as possible between them and the Gruagach.
‘They oughtn't to wake,’ he said, worriedly, ‘but you never know. Let’s get as far away as we can.’
This was clearly sensible so Fenella did not argue. She had sorted out the reins now and Caspar had explained about just touching the horse’s flanks with her heels to spur it to a gallop.
‘I won’t try that yet,’ said Fenella, who was rather enjoying riding the horse, but was not sure how she might get on with whatever was a gallop. ‘I’ll get a bit more accustomed first.’ And then, ‘Or if we hear the Gruagach following,’ she said. ‘I’ll gallop then.’
Ahead of them would be the road that would lead to the Fire Court of the sorceress Reflection and her daughter Flame. They had studied the maps very carefully before setting out and Floy had marked out the way that he and Snodgrass would take. It had looked quite straightforward, thought Fenella, who was not very used to maps and was still adjusting to the vastness of this world after small Renascia. Floy had said he and Snodgrass would try their best to leave markers on the road as they went, providing that Balor did not catch them at it.
‘We’ll leave arrangements of stones,’ suggested Floy, and Snodgrass had said that he believed this had been done on Earth.
‘But many many centuries before the Devastation,’ he said. ‘There was something about a Bronze Age, I believe. It’s a good idea, Floy.’
Floy had said they would do their best, but Fenella and Caspar ought not to rely on it too much. ‘Because although we’ll try to outwit Balor, we might have him with us for a goodish while,’ he said.
It was strange to Fenella to know that presently the night would begin to die and that the pale grey and pink streaks of the new day would start to lighten the sky as it had done on Renascia before the Star Maps changed and the Dark Lodestar had sent out its hungry beckoning.
She had always rather liked the very early morning, which had been a little like the lifting of a curtain, a thin silver veil, spangled with droplets of moisture. It was one of the things that had disappeared from Renascia towards the end and it gave Fenella an odd, rather out-of-balance feeling to see dawn light again.
As the sky lightened even more and they began to make out their surroundings more clearly, Fenella and Caspar both found themselves looking out for the signs that Floy had hoped to leave.
‘Stones arranged in heaps,’ said Fenella, frowning, reining her horse in to a slow walk.
‘Boulders. What they call cairns in the north,’ said Caspar. ‘But very tiny ones. And they were going to put them in the shape of an arrowhead. That’s if they could put them there.’
‘Floy would have found a way,’ said Fenella firmly. ‘He knew we were going to be following him.’
‘What about Balor?’
‘Oh, he’d have got rid of Balor by now,’ said Fenella. And then, ‘Wouldn’t he?’
‘I hope so,’ said Caspar, gloomily.
As the road lengthened and the sky began to lighten overhead, they were able to see their surroundings more clearly. Fenella shivered and drew her cloak more tightly about her. There was a dead, barren feeling to the road now; the trees were becoming sparse and most of them were stunted and twisted. The grass was shrivelled and blackened and the leafless branches stood out against the grey morning and seemed to reach skeletal fingers towards them. There were great rocks on the road and thin mist seemed to cling to everywhere. And it was growing very cold. Fenella shivered and drew her cloak more closely about her. There was a dry, raw whiteness to the sky and when, at last, Caspar stopped to consult the maps and discuss with Fenella which road they should take, his breath formed a vapour on the air.
‘Because,’ he said, ‘there aren’t any signs from Floy or, if there are, we’ve missed them.’
‘I don’t think we’ve missed them,’ said Fenella. ‘I think that either Floy couldn’t leave them for some reason, or — ’
‘Yes?’
‘Or we’re lost,’ said Fenella, rather crossly.
‘Let’s trace our route on the maps,’ said Caspar, dismounting and tethering his horse to the low branch of a leafless Tree. ‘It ought to be easy enough.’
Fenella slithered down from the horse’s back and stood for a moment in the road, feeling the fingers of mist swirl into her face and touch her skin with damp clammy hands. It was rather a horrid mist; you felt as if it might be concealing peering, grinning creatures who were being very careful to stay just out of sight, but who were creeping after you as you rode along, or who were tiptoeing on ahead of you, rubbing their hands together, waiting until you reached them … Perhaps the Gruagach had been following them, keeping just out of sight, waiting until they dismounted, ready to reach out and scoop them up and carry them back to Tara and the roasting spits … I had better stop this, said Fenella to herself very firmly. I had better remember that there’s nothing in the least bit sinister about mists and fogs. And we should most certainly have heard the Gruagach if they had been following us.
She helped Caspar to spread out the map and, together, they traced the road from Tara along the sides of the Wolfwood and down through a couple of tiny villages.
‘We’ve done that,’ said Caspar, pointing.
‘Yes, there’s the villages we rode through,’ said Fenella, frowning. ‘And that’s the fork in the road where you said left and I said right.’
‘Which was it?’
‘Well, it was right, actually,’ said Fenella. ‘We consulted the maps to be sure.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘We haven’t got lost at all,’ said Fenella, who had been secretly rather afraid of this. ‘We’re on the right road.’
‘Oh, yes. It’s just that it would have been nice to have seen the signs,’ said Caspar, rolling the maps up and packing them in his saddle bag. He did not say that he hoped Floy and Snodgrass were all right, because he did not think he had to say it. Fenella would be thinking it without anybody to suggest it to her.
Fenella w
as thinking it, but she was trying to be sensible and practical. It was important to remember that it was only a few hours since Floy and Snodgrass had left Tara, the Shining Citadel, the Bright Palace, and that there was not very much that could have gone wrong for them in those few hours.
We’ll be with them in the Fire Court by nightfall. Or if not tonight, certainly tomorrow. I’ll believe that we will, thought Fenella, firmly. I’ll believe that we’ll catch up with them; probably quite soon. I wish this mist would lift.
Riding on again, down the road which they thought would be the easiest route to the Fire Court, Fenella began to have the feeling that the twisty Tree stumps were not Tree stumps at all, but horrid, stunted living things and that malicious ancient eyes looked out from their depths. So strong was the feeling that several times she thought she caught the tail-end of a movement as they passed by several blackened stumps and she turned sharply, expecting to see something leering evilly at them, but there was nothing.
‘And,’ said Caspar, ‘there is a heavy feeling to the air now, can you tell that?’
‘Yes,’ said Fenella in rather a small voice. ‘It’s quite difficult to breathe.’ And then, because it would not help to show fear, ‘What would it be?’ she asked and was pleased to hear her voice quite ordinary and sensible.
‘It might be a number of things,’ said Caspar, who was looking about him. ‘But what I think it is, is the Robe-maker.’
‘Here?’ Fenella shivered again, but at the comers other mind, something said: Nuadu! By finding the Robemaker (or being found by him?) they might somehow rescue Nuadu.
‘I think we are nearing the Robemaker’s Workshops,’ said Caspar. He reined in his horse and made a gesture with one hand that took in the flat dead wasteland and the strangled trees and the black barrenness. ‘Necromancy,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Do you know, I never believed in that hoary old tale about necromancy sucking all the goodness and all the warmth from everything, but perhaps I’ve been wrong. You’d certainly say the heart has gone from the land hereabouts, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Fenella, and wished that Caspar had not used the word sucking, because it made you think about coldly evil creatures with grisly appetites, who might leap on to you and cling to you and sink teeth and claws and needle-sharp pincers into you and suck out your blood and your marrow and all your life juices … ‘What ought we to do?’ said Fenella, a bit more loudly than she had meant. ‘We can’t turn back. Can we?’ Because if we turn back, said her mind, then you will be going away from Nuadu, you will be losing what might be the only chance of rescuing him from the Robemaker. Caspar had said that no one ever escaped from the Robemaker — but I shall not believe that, thought Fenella. I will not. If she half closed her eyes, she could still see Nuadu, the thin, rather sardonic smile twisting his lips, his eyes narrowed and mocking. And there had been that brief time in the Wolfwood -I won't remember it! thought Fenella, but she did remember it. The mockery fled, the Wolfprince suddenly and disarmingly vulnerable … Had he loved her at all? Perhaps just a little. I’ll believe he loved me just a little at least, thought Fenella, sitting quite still on her horse and looking about her. I’ll believe it and I’ll believe we can rescue him and then perhaps I shall manage. It was important to believe, and it was important not to give up. The early Earth-people had not given up on anything; they had conquered and explored and invented and they had made a marvellous and memorable world.
Caspar was slowing down, his eyes on a dip towards their left, where the road seemed to fall away into a natural valley.
‘What is it?’ said Fenella.
Caspar said, in a rather flat voice, ‘At least we can be sure of being on the right road.’
‘How can you — ’ Then Fenella stopped as well, because the maps had been very explicit. They had listed all of the places they would have to pass on their way to the Fire Court; they had shown the tiny villages and the Wolfwood and the forks in the road and the long flat road down to Reflection’s country and the glittering decadent Fire Court.
They had shown the cluster of dark low-roofed buildings huddled together at the road’s side, reaching far back into the hillside.
The Robemaker’s dark and evil Workshops.
And they were directly in their path.
To begin with, Nuadu had not found the crimson mask particularly punishing. The rope-lights were tight-fitting, but they were not cruel; he could breathe easily and he could move. He did not waste any energy in trying to break free of the mask, because he knew it to be pointless; the Robemaker’s dark enchantments were seldom broken and he knew, as well, that there would be far worse torments ahead.
After the winged Soul Eater had gone from the low-ceilinged Workshops, its leathery wings beating on the night, the soul of the mutilated boy held in a merciless grip between its claws, the slaves had scuttled back to their tasks and the Robemaker had conjured up another of the thin, whiplike lights that had lashed out and thrown Nuadu to the floor.
‘Hurry, Wolfprince, for my work does not wait for such as you,’ he said in his sibilant whisper, but now Nuadu detected a lick of pleasure in the voice. He moved at once, for he would not lie here on the floor before this ancient evil creature and, although it was awkward and painful to stand up because of the ropes that bound his arms, he did so in a swift fluid movement and stood eyeing the Robemaker.
For a moment, the Robemaker did not speak and then he drew nearer, the dark, silken folds of his cloak brushing the floor with a hissing sound. Nuadu had the sudden impression that, everywhere it touched, the robe left a thick slimy trail; faintly phosphorescent, certainly foul. A snail’s trail. A slug’s trail. An emission of pure evil. And this is the creature who is draining Ireland’s heart away and this is the creature who holds sway over Tara, he thought.
But he stayed where he was and he continued to regard the Robemaker from over the restricting mask and, presently, the Robemaker said, ‘Does it not irk you and chafe you to be so confined, Wolfprince?’ For the first time, Nuadu caught the briefest hint of discomposure from the necromancer and knew that by remaining calm and apparently indifferent he had succeeded in disconcerting the Robemaker a little.
But the moment passed and the Robemaker had folded his arms, the deep sleeves hanging down. Nuadu saw that his hands were hidden by dark gloves, but that they were thin and hard-looking. Emaciated. What was behind the dark robe and what was within the deep, all-concealing hood?
The Robemaker turned his head and Nuadu felt a sudden white piercing pain deep inside his mind and he knew at once that the Robemaker had made use of the ancient, forbidden Stroicim Inchinn again and that he had pierced into his secret thoughts. He felt a sudden unwilling awe for this creature who could with such ease summon and bend to his will the terrible Stroicim Inchinn.
‘The paths of your mind are mine to walk if I wish it,’ said the Robemaker. ‘You find that alarming, I think? Yes, for amongst your own puny sorcerers, there is a code of honour.’ The words came out on a sneer. ‘A code that forbids the Stroicim Inchinn.’ Again the dark hood moved and Nuadu caught the glint of dark, malevolent eyes. ‘I have only contempt and hatred for your sorcerers, Wolfprince,’ said the Robemaker, and again Nuadu had the sense that the Robemaker was gauging his reactions. He fixed his eyes on the cloaked figure and waited.
‘Your sorcerers cast me out,’ said the Robemaker. ‘Did you know that, Wolfprince? Did you know that they exiled me — me I was the greatest of the spell weavers and I was the most powerful enchanter they had ever known.’ He stopped, breathing harshly, and, within the hood, his head seemed to tilt slyly. ‘I was once at Tara, Wolfprince,’ said the Robemaker in his soft insinuating voice. ‘Does that surprise you? Once I served the High King Erin — oh, long since. Decades and centuries.’ He made an abrupt gesture, indicating the enveloping cloak, the deep, hanging sleeves. ‘Your ancestors were gracious to their servants, Nuadu of the Silver Arm,’ he said, sneeringly. ‘They were generous.’ He pause
d, and Nuadu felt the black hatred emanating from him again. ‘I brought immense powers to Tara in those days,’ said the Robemaker after a moment. ‘I sought to increase my powers, for to master the ancient art of sorcery, truly to master it, it is necessary to master all else. It is necessary to understand and master every pleasure and every pain, every cruelty and every kindness.’ He stopped again, and Nuadu waited. ‘I had mastered the pleasures and the kindnesses,’ said the Robemaker. ‘But it was still necessary to master their counterparts.’ The half-hidden eyes gleamed. ‘It was necessary to explore, to the utmost, pain and cruelty and the dark secret yearning of men’s souls,’ he said.
‘And so I did what few dare to do, Wolfprince. I went through one of the gateways that exist between this Ireland and the Dark Ireland, that other Realm, that mirror-image which is no mirror-image at all, but a land in its own right. The underside of the Wolfkings’ Ireland, Nuadu of the Silver Arm; the place where the necromancers and the dark Fields of Sorcery lie, where the Black Citadels of the powerful enchanters exist deep in the desolate Mountains of Twilight.’ He stopped again and Nuadu, trying to guard his thoughts, certainly trying to shield his eyes, thought: and once in the Dark Ireland, you were lured to the side of the necromancers! You were enticed by the dark magicians into their palaces and their dark citadels and you were shown the powers and the sinisterly beautiful rewards of sorcery.
It would not be the first time that a Court sorcerer had been lured away from the strong pure magic of Ireland and sworn allegiance to the Dark Realm. He remembered the ancient and persistent belief that once any living creature has walked in the Black Fields of Sorcery and dined at the tables of the Lords of the Dark Ireland, he is for ever lost to the true Ireland. For a terrible moment, something flared in his heart and he felt an insidious tug at his mind: how would it be to enter that Realm, and talk with the Dark Lords and learn their secrets … ? How would it be to walk in the Dark Fields and journey in the Mountains of Twilight and swim in the underground Crimson Lakes … ? And then his mind cleared, and he was looking at the Robemaker and feeling contempt for him again, feeling as well, the dangerous, powerful white spears of the Stroicim Inchinn withdraw, so that he knew the Robemaker had again called up the Stroicim without giving any outward indication of having done so. Nuadu thought that a glitter of amusement showed from within the folds of the hood. When the Robemaker spoke again in his soft hissing voice, he knew he had been right.