by Sarah Rayne
They moved on, every now and then glancing over their shoulders. Once Floy thought he heard the faint, rather sinister sound of laughter and, at the intersection of two streets, where the cobbles were icy and treacherous, Snodgrass said he had caught the glimpse of a vanishing shape in between the ruins.
‘Something thin and whitish,’ he said apologetically. ‘Beckoning fingers and a sort of swirling mist. I couldn’t see any more than that.’
Here and there they caught the frenzied scufflings of rats and several times they saw tiny red eyes peering at them from the dark buildings. Floy, who was still listening for the brittle voices they had heard earlier, thought: I suppose they are only rats, and quenched the thought before it could take any stronger form.
‘It’s very quiet,’ said Snodgrass at length. ‘Normally you’d think it was deserted, seeing it like this.’
‘Only we know it isn’t deserted,’ said Floy. ‘We know that the Frost Giantess is here somewhere.’ And thought that, even without the laughter and the strange, half-formed voices, they would have known that Gruagach was not deserted. There was an impression, a sensation, an extra instinct at work that heightened their awareness, so that they felt, at every corner, at every curve in the road, as if eyes watched them and unseen creatures flitted out of sight just as they turned to look.
Snodgrass suggested that they had only imagined the voices earlier on, but he said this in the slightly too emphatic voice of one trying to convince himself.
‘Let’s just keep walking,’ said Floy. ‘As if we aren’t at all worried by any of it. Do you feel that the wind’s growing colder?’
The icy wind was growing colder and it was growing stronger. As they walked on it began to feel as if it was cutting through their clothes to their very bones. ‘We can’t be so very far from the Fire Court,’ said Floy, lifting his voice above the howling wind. ‘Can you see it, yet? I’m sure Caspar said it had been modelled on Tara to a large extent and that it shone over the surrounding countryside. There’d be lights and perhaps spires or turrets.’
They both stood still and looked about them in all directions, but there was nothing but the black shapes of the giants’ dwellings and the whiteness of the icy rain against the darkening sky.
Floy, who was bitterly cold, said, ‘I think we ought to try to find some kind of shelter for a while.’ He turned to catch Snodgrass’s reply and, as he did so, the evil laughter rang out again.
Shelter, Human Wayfarers, oh yes, there is shelter here for those who wish it … There is warmth and food and fires, and there is a welcome for you …
‘It’s only the wind,’ said Snodgrass a bit too loudly. ‘The wind whipping through that empty house there.’
‘It’s more than that,’ said Floy. ‘There’s something here — perhaps several somethings. I wish we could see them.’ He peered about them, but there were more flurries of whiteness within the wind now and an ice-cold stinging rain was beginning to swirl all around so it was difficult to see anything. The wind tore down, making them gasp for breath, and Snodgrass had to take off his spectacles because it was impossible to see through them any longer.
The snow was driving relentlessly into their faces and the ground underfoot was icy and dangerous. Floy and Snodgrass, neither of whom had ever seen snow, both thought it would have been interesting and rather beautiful if they could have admired it from inside a warm room, with fires burning, and steaming drinks, and perhaps tureens of hot soup …
Then come to us, Human Wayfarers, come to us, and see our banqueting hall … let us welcome you and succour you and let us warm your poor, icy bodies …
Floy said, very loudly, ‘What are you?’ and at once there was a shriek of tinkling, ice-tapping-on-glass laughter.
We are the Wraiths, Human Wayfarers … we are the Spirits of the Frozen North, and of the Snowbound Ice Mountains. Where warmth is we cannot exist, but once the heat has been drawn from the land, then we live, and then we flourish. We are storm creatures and blizzard spirits … we are glaciers and ice caps and we are frozen seas and icy wastes …
‘But what are you?’ cried Floy, standing with his feet planted apart, the wind whipping at his cloak and tumbling his hair. ‘Tell us what you are!’
The cold, silvery laughter echoed all about them again, part of the raging wind and yet not quite part of it. It was very nearly impossible to tell if the voices came from within the howling storm, or from outside of it, or even, thought Floy, lifting one hand to shield his face from the biting cold, or even if the voices were there at all.
Oh yes we are, Human Wayfarers, oh yes we are …
‘Then tell us who you are!’ cried Floy with sudden impatience. ‘Or are you so ill favoured that you must hide away like monsters!’
There was a sudden lull in the blizzard and Floy and Snodgrass both thought it was dying. They both peered into the blinding whiteness of the storm, trying to make out the road, trying to gauge how far into the city they were.
Without warning, the storm raged again, whipping their cloaks, snatching at their hair. Great torrents of icy rain slashed down from the skies, blinding them with its intensity. Snodgrass gasped and fell backwards and, at once, the cold laughter intensified. Floy, his eyes streaming with the fierce cold, his skin feeling as if dozens of razors were slicing at it, saw, deep in the raging blizzard, grinning faces, icicle-nosed features … clutching, reaching hands with grasping, bony fingers … with frosted eyes and hair that was made of the snow and the ice and the freezing, cutting wind …
The voices came again, closer this time, clearer.
We are the Children of the Geimreadh, Human Wayfarers … We serve the Geimhreadh and our names are many …
‘Tell us your names!’ shouted Floy, trying not to flinch from the driving blizzard, trying to see more clearly into the heart of the storm.
We are many, Human … Storm we are and Sough … Sigh we are and Wail … Tempest and Blizzard and Winter-night … moaning wind and keening rain …
Icy fingers snaked about Floy’s cloak and drew him, struggling, into the heart of the blizzard. Snodgrass moved forward at once, but a dozen pairs of cold, bony fingers came darting from out of the whirling snow and held them both in a tight cruel grip.
We lie in wait for Wayfarers and we lie in wait for HUMANS … Those that the Mistress discards, we fall upon … We may fall upon YOU, Human Travellers …
‘Begone!’ cried Floy, trying to fight free of the cold, bony hands, feeling them bite deep into his wrists and legs.
Let us stroke your pale Human skin with our icy fingers … Let us kiss you with our cold lips and eat away your flesh in the embrace called frost-bite … The grinning, white, ice-dripping faces loomed nearer suddenly.
Come with us, Human Wayfarers, to the Castle of the giantish ones … Come into the ice-fires of our magic …
The cold laughter rang out again and Floy, struggling, half blinded by the fierce wind, his lungs raw from the icy blizzard, found himself drawn forward into its heart by the icy-cold hands of the storm creatures.
He thought that they bound him with wet, cold ropes which seemed to be made of coarse, rough hair that cut cruelly into his wrists and ankles. A grey mist swam before his vision and there was a sudden terrifying silence all about him, so that he thought the creatures had in some way blinded him and rendered him deaf …
And then the cold, cruel mirth assaulted his senses again.
We do not cover your eyes, Human One … said the voices. It is only our cloaks of hoar frost that obscure your vision, and it is only the keening of our blizzard songs that stop your hearing … Your senses are safe for the moment, Human Traveller … Until we embrace you, and THEN, Human Traveller, you will feel your flesh shrivel and you will see it decompose before your eyes … you will hear yourself screaming with the pain of the ice-burn … You will cry with the agony of the marrow freezing inside your bones … The blood will congeal in your veins and you will die slowly and you will be forever ours …
‘Where are you taking us?’ said Floy, gasping and trying to see through the blinding mist, but able only to make out thin, bony hands and pale, thin faces with frozen icicles on them.
To our Mistress, Human One … And then, with another eldritch shriek of laughter, To the centre of Gruagach and the Lair of the Geimhreadh.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Lair of the Geimhreadh …
Floy and Snodgrass could see, through the howling snowstorm, the great rearing outline of the castle above them. Ruined and crumbling, thought Floy. And then: or is it? Because lights showed at the narrow slitlike windows; torches burned in wall brackets on each side of the massive, iron-studded doors.
The ice creatures half carried, half dragged their two victims across the immense drawbridge (And who lowered that? wondered Floy) and beneath the great black arch. Ahead of them was a courtyard, with windows overlooking it on all sides. As they passed into the shadow cast by the bulk of the giants’ castle, Floy felt cold fear close about his heart.
The storm creatures scuttled and slithered as they went and occasionally took flying leaps through the air, so that they might almost have flown. They chuckled evilly as they went and pinched their prisoners with their cold, dripping wet fingers. Floy saw Snodgrass struggle and try to hit out, but the grey mist things simply laughed and melted out of reach and then formed again.
They passed through empty, echoing galleries and through huge, pointed doorways and down flights of stone steps.
‘Where is this?’ cried Floy. ‘Where are you taking us?’
To our Mistress … to the Geimhreadh …
The white fingers came out again, prodding, poking, pinching. Floy saw the leering snow-frosted faces grinning and tried to see, in the dimness, if the creatures were male or female.
Neither, Human prisoner, we are both male and female and we can pleasure you in the ways of women with men, or of men with women … Malevolent mirth trickled from the inward-slanting eyes. Or of men with men, or women with women … It is all one to us, Humans … Greed licked into the voices. We can freeze your marrow and we can congeal your blood and eat at your flesh with the stinging agony of frostbite …
The sharp, grinning features thrust forward into the prisoners’ faces and clawlike fingers, icy cold, pinched their skin.
Our Mistress will like you. Humans … she will enfold you with her cold arms and pillow your head on her ice-cold breasts and she will empty you of every drop of Human blood and Human seed and Human marrow …
‘Let her try it!’ said Floy. ‘We shall kill her if she tries to harm us!’
The Geimhreadh is invincible, Humans … She is beyond the harm of your puny swords and your ineffectual daggers and your flailing Human strength …
The ice creatures half carried, half dragged the two prisoners down winding flights of narrow, worn stairs that went down and down until it seemed to Floy and Snodgrass that they were descending into the very bowels of this grim fortress. The steps were surrounded by ancient, crumbling brick; moss-covered here and there from the clammy dampness, in places sprouting horrid fungoid growths. There was a smell of dank wetness and the sound, somewhere close by, of water steadily dripping.
‘Where is this!’ demanded Floy, and there was a brittle cascade of laughter.
It is where we bring our victims, Human creature … It is where we crouch in the cold darkness, gnawing at the bones of those whom the Mistress has discarded … The grinning faces darted closer.
After we have tom away your skin with our claws and eaten away your flesh with the agonies of frost-bite, we shall wind our long, dripping fingers about your thin Human bones … We shall freeze the bone-juices as they trickle out and then we shall crack open your frail, puny bones, and gnaw on them …
They stood outside a great, carved door with huge black hinges and a massive ring handle carved into the shape of a grinning gargoyle face. As Floy and Snodgrass half fell to their knees, the storm creatures darted forward, their hands eager to unlock the catch, their white-rimmed eyes grinning.
An eerie, bluish light emanated from within the room and, as the door swung open at the hands of the storm creatures, they both gasped and reeled from the blast of intensely cold air.
To begin with, Floy and Snodgrass thought the chamber was empty. A cold, bluish light filled it and a thin, evil-smelling vapour hung on the air, so that the shape of the room and the things in it were hazy.
And then, gradually, their eyes became accustomed to the cold light and they saw that it pulsated rather horridly, as if they were at the centre of a giant heart that was beating and pumping thick sluggish blood. Floy found this feeling extremely repellent, but he stood up very straight and managed to ignore the grinning storm creatures who had gathered behind him. And, although his hands were bound tightly behind his back, he made himself stand quite calmly, with what was very nearly a relaxed air. He put up his chin and looked down his nose at the room, as if he found it all faintly boring.
It was lined with the dark stone that they had glimpsed on their journey through the castle; great square blocks of blackness from floor to ceiling. Giants’ stones, thought Floy, and put the thought from him at once.
To the left was a great archway and, beyond it, they could see an expanse of dark glistening water, ink-black, its surface frost-rimed. There was a rather slimy look to the water, and a secretive look to it, as if half-fish creatures, cold-blooded webbed-footed beings might lurk beneath its depths, and might come slithering up in the dark and reach out their dripping wet arms. Floy found himself remembering the dark underground River of Souls in Fael-Inis’s country, and the dreadful pitiful beings who had lurked in its depths.
The cold mists swirled and moved and, for a moment, the great stone room was partly obscured. And then the mist cleared and they could see.
The Geimhreadh … the Frost Giantess who battened on her victims and emptied them of seed and blood and marrow … The terrible evil ogress who had come out of the Dark Ireland and who must certainly be counted as one of the evil black necromancers.
She is not as massive as the Gruagach giants, but she is far taller than any Human, thought Floy, staring. And then: whatever else she is, he thought, she is certainly not Human.
The Geimhreadh was not Human at all. She was seated on a great, glistening throne of ice with a high carved back and long, elaborate arm rests. The chair loomed high above them and the Geimhreadh’s terrible head rose above it. Floy and Snodgrass both thought that she must be eleven or twelve feet high and they both stood, transfixed, unable to move, their senses spinning, their skins crawling with horror.
The Geimhreadh was the most extraordinary blend of giant and snake and … And fish! thought Floy, his skin crawling with horror. For all her towering height, she possessed a narrow saurian body with no neck or shoulders. The head was a continuance of the wormlike body — slightly pointed, snake-shaped, darting … it was darker than the rest of the body, with reptilian eyes, hooded and black and unblinking, ancient and cruel. There was a flat, curving mouth, with the permanent, enigmatic smile of all snake creatures. And, as they stood looking, unable to speak, the lips opened slightly and the forked tongue darted and licked the flat scaly lips.
All the better to drain your marrow, my dears …
Short, fin-like arms protruded halfway down the narrow body, with rudimentary hands and fingers at the ends and they saw that the creature had some kind of thin pale silk wound about her. For some reason, instead of concealing the serpentine shape, this served to emphasise it. It was rather as if a giant pale-skinned worm had stolen human clothing and dressed up in it and sat on a human chair, waiting for a victim …
Swathes of silk hung at her back, but there was a cold, slimy look to the silk and there was the same foul river-weed stench they had been aware of earlier.
The Geimhreadh moved, her thin draperies stirring slightly, and they saw that the embryonic hands ended in webbed, star-shaped fingers. Snodgrass, who
did not like fish things, shuddered, and Floy put out a warning hand. Whatever they were feeling, whatever they were thinking, they must try not to let this monstrous halfgiant, half-snake being see their revulsion. And they certainly must not let it see their fear.
The neckless head poked forward and the hooded eyes examined them.
‘You are well come, travellers,’ said the Geimhreadh) and Floy and Snodgrass heard the throaty, gobbling voice with revulsion. The dark eyes flickered again, as if the creature was inspecting them, assessing them, visualising what it would do to them.
Floy said, ‘It seems that we had no choice other than to accept your-hospitality, ma’am,’ and the Geimhreadh laughed with a dreadful braying sound that made Floy’s teeth wince and her monstrous head swayed and darted in a way that made them both remember half-forgotten Earth words like basilisk and serpent and white slug and worm. Worm was particularly nasty. It was a slimy, creeping sort of word, a blind, toothless word …
The Geimhreadh turned her eyes towards them and said in her soft, bubbling voice, ‘I am of the worm family, Humans. You read my bloodline correctly. I have many different strains in my blood and I am the result of many strange alliances.’ She regarded them unblinkingly and Floy remembered about thoughts being overheard.
The Geimhreadh, moving a fin-like hand in the direction of the grinning storm creatures, said, ‘My people will tell you that I am descended from a race of fish-creatures and snakes. Of how, many hundreds of years ago, there was an alliance between those houses and that of the giants of the north. I am the daughter of snakes and giants, Human travellers, and the descendant of an ancient and powerful race who dwelled in the wintry wastes of this land long before the Gaels or the Cruithin, and long before the accursed Wolfkings.’ The terrible head swayed again. ‘Once, Human creatures,’ said the Geimhreadh, ‘this land was sheeted in ice and crusted with snow and once it lived in endless, howling blizzards. It was then that my ancestors reigned here, prowling the petrified forests and crawling on their bellies through the frozen wastes.’