by Sarah Rayne
‘As well as that,’ said Snodgrass practically, ‘I’d be a shocking hindrance to you if you’re going to be running away. I wouldn’t be able to keep up for one thing. I’d slow you down.’
‘That wouldn’t matter.’
‘I daresay you’ll come back for me later on, when it’s all over, won’t you?’ said Snodgrass. ‘Yes, I thought you would. I’ll have a word with the bailiffs to be sure that they don’t mind. You can’t simply inflict yourself on people,’ said Snodgrass sternly. ‘It wouldn’t be polite. So I’ll ask them, to see if there’d be any difficulty.’
There was no difficulty at all. He met Floy and Flame at the foot of the bailiffs’ tower and said it was all arranged.
‘I shall be quite safe,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a word with the bailiffs — nice people. We’ve been getting on rather well. They’re going to give me a bed and we’re going to look into the accounts of lnchbad’s people. Madame’s requested it,’ said Snodgrass, suddenly looking serious. ‘It’s all quite official. She seems to think that the Gruagach haven’t always been — dear me, how should I put it? — haven’t always been quite straight in their dealings. Well, not to put it too bluntly,’ said Snodgrass, ‘the bailiffs think they’ve been fiddling the books from here to the other side of Ireland, not that that’s something I’d like repeated, you understand.’
‘Of course not,’ said Flame, who did not wholly understand, but gathered that Snodgrass thought Inchbad’s people were guilty of something vaguely dishonest. ‘Are you sure you will be comfortable here?’ she asked, and Snodgrass beamed and said he would be very comfortable indeed, thankyou kindly, and thought it was a very nice thing indeed to see Floy so taken with this rather unusual young lady, although it was certainly a pity that she had to be Reflection’s daughter, and you had to remember the old saying about what was in the meat came out in the gravy.
The bailiffs, who appeared to be quite agreeable to everything, shook Floy’s hand and wished him well on his journey. One of them, who was about Floy’s build, produced a couple of shirts and a woollen cloak, because you could not be letting a fellow Human go off into the night without a change of shirt.
‘Snodgrass’ll be all right,’ said Floy, as he and Flame stole round the eastern wall of the Palace. ‘All the same — ’
‘All the same, he is a good friend and he shared danger with you and you are unhappy about leaving him to strangers.’
‘Yes. That’s very perceptive of you.’
‘If we go down here,’ said Flame practically, ‘we can reach the side gate and be out into the world without anyone seeing us.’
‘Here?’ Floy led the way along a narrow pathway and saw the small, latched door directly ahead.
‘Yes.’ Flame watched as he lifted the latch and saw, through the doorway, the dark wastes of Ireland. Waiting. A shiver of purest delight, tinged with apprehension, rippled through her. I am escaping. I am about to see the real world and perhaps all the other worlds that exist …
As they slipped out, she said to Roy, ‘Where are we going?’ and waited, because although she knew, deep down, where they were going, she would like Floy to confirm it.
Roy looked down at her and smiled the reckless, we-can-do-anything smile that made her heart lift with joy.
‘To the one place in Ireland where you can be safe,’ he said. ‘To the Fire Rivers and your father. ‘To the Palace of Wildfire. ‘To Fael-Inis.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
As the immense Gateway of the Cruachan Cavern yawned wide, Nuadu and Fenella were instantly assailed by menacing darkness. Fenella supposed they had expected this, but she thought they had not expected the very air to have such clotted malevolence, or such a feeling of distortion. She stood at Nuadu’s side, with the Cavern and the Soul Eaters and the Rodent Armies behind them, and looked out over the sinister world that they must enter, the Dark Underside, the Black Realm, the Other Ireland.
The mirror-image of all that was good and strong and filled with light …
The terrible domain of necromancers.
The skies were black and heavy, streaked in places with deep, angry crimson, as if the heavens had bled and they were skies that would be forever dark. They reminded Fenella of marshes and quicksands and black swamps and she knew it would be smothering and frightening to have to walk under those skies.
The sense of distortion was almost overpowering. There was the impression that everything was slightly warped and out of balance, rather like a house which has been built with every angle out of true and every chimney leaning and every window and door not quite square. Fenella began to feel dizzy, as if the landscape was tilting, or as if it was shifting surreptitiously, but in the wrong direction. It was a bit like standing in a very high place and looking down, feeling your senses spin and your ribs lurch with vertigo.
As they moved forward, the door behind them slowly closed and they both felt a swift wrenching, a dislocation, as if they had been torn out of the real world and flung forward.
Fenella thought: yes, we are shut out of the real world, the real Ireland now. There is no going back. But she still stood irresolute, waiting for Nuadu to move, trying to see what might be ahead, trying to hear what sort of creatures they might have to meet.
She was just framing the thought that for all its menace, for all the grim black mountain silhouettes and the crimson-streaked skies that you felt you could reach up to touch, the Dark Realm was silent, when she became aware of the sounds.
Voices, thought Fenella, transfixed. Murmurings. Just beneath the surface, or perhaps just on the other side of the menacing sky. It was as if hundreds upon hundreds of creatures were talking softly together.
At her side, Nuadu tilted his head, his eyes shadowed, and something flared in his expression, as if, for the briefest instant, he had recognised the sounds, or even as if he had been waiting for them. But he only looked about him and then, holding out the hand that was solid pure silver, he made a gesture encompassing the landscape.
‘The Dark Ireland,’ said the Wolfprince, softly. ‘The Domain of the Necromancers. The fearsome mirror-image.’ The lick of excitement was in his voice, stronger now, and Fenella could feel pulsating waves of anticipation from him.
‘Can you feel it, Fenella?’ he said, looking down at her. ‘Can you feel the strangeness and the sense of being somewhere where there is no light and no truth or beauty or integrity? Only distortions and deformities and only stunted ugliness and lumpen malevolence?’
His voice was very nearly expressionless, but Fenella saw, in the strange, dark twilight, that his eyes were slanting more strongly than she had ever seen them slant before and that his lips had thinned, so that now there was a white gleam of teeth beneath.
Fenella stood very still and thought: I am about to walk forward into a terrible Dark World, peopled by evil creatures, and ruled by greedy malignant Lords. The air is fouled with dark enchantments and all about us are eerie whisperings and murmurings. And I am here alone, thought Fenella; I am farther from Floy than I have ever been in my life, and I am farther from the world I knew, which is lost and dead anyway. I am alone but for a creature who is half a Wolf — and probably more than half — and I do not know whether I can trust him.’
Nuadu said, ‘This way, Lady,’ and took her hand, leading her forward, deeper into the Dark Realm.
‘You know the way?’ said Fenella, looking about her at the dark desolation, seeing several different paths.
‘We should go deep into those mountains, which are the Black Mountains of the necromancers,’ said Nuadu. ‘That is where they have their citadels and their towers. That is where we shall find CuRoi’s Castle of Illusions. But before that, we must skirt the Fields of Blood.’ He took the path that snaked away towards the mountains; Fenella could see, in the near distance, crimson fields with waving strands of things that looked like pieces of bloodied and torn Human skin.
‘The Fields of Blood,’ said Nuadu, softly. ‘The harvest of the necromanc
ers. The remains of their fleshly lusts.’
‘I see,’ said Fenella, carefully non-committal.
As they drew nearer, they could see that the Fields of Blood were as horrid as they had looked from afar.
‘Must we actually go through them?’ asked Fenella, staring at the Fields and feeling rather sick. The strips of skin were all the same length; about two feet in height, as if somebody had trimmed them to an exact size before embedding them in the ground and leaving them to dry and shrivel. In some sections of the Fields, this had already happened, and the skin-rags were tough and leathery-looking, but in others, the skin was still pale and fresh, streaked with new blood. Whoever had cut the skin so precisely had not troubled about trimming off pieces of bone or shreds of muscle and, the nearer they got, the more clearly they could see the white glint of splintered bone, or the glistening worms of intestine or dark red wetness of liver or kidney. Here and there were single eyes, attached to face skin, hanging downwards on thin stringy optic nerves.
Nuadu said, ‘No, I think the path winds alongside, but we do not go through the Fields themselves. ‘ Fenella was aware of strong relief, because it would have been inexpressibly dreadful to have to wade, waist-high, through the tattered, bloodied remnants. At the centre was even a ragged scarecrow, its sleeves flapping in the noisome wind that stirred the grisly surface of the fields.
‘What are the Fields for?’ asked Fenella.
‘I believe,’ said Nuadu, padding along at her side, ‘that when a necromancer has used a Human in his work, he plants out what is left, so that it can be harvested in the future.’
Fenella said, in an expressionless voice, ‘Pieces of Human skin and Human bone and Human eyes and muscle?’
‘Yes. They would all be useful in the dark sorcery,’ said Nuadu and, as he said this, the dark murmurings grew louder, and an eerie taunting chant filled the air.
Fillet the Humans, draw their fangs.
Strip their skins and pulp their hands.
Fenella and Nuadu both stopped and looked about them, and the dark murmurings swelled and chuckled.
Bones to jelly and blood to boil,
Eyes and hair and teeth and cauls.
Grist for the cauldrons and meat for the spells.
There was a greedy note to the murmurings, as if hidden, evil creatures might be watching and waiting and rubbing their hands.
From the corner of her eye, Fenella caught, fleetingly, the sight of reaching hands, long-fingered and greedy, and she drew in a sharp breath, because it was impossible to escape the impression of grisly blood-soaked beings, servants of the Dark Lords, hiding in the gore-spattered undergrowth of the Fields, watching for victims for their masters.
Nuadu said, ‘If we keep walking they will not harm us.’
‘Can we be sure of that?’
‘I think so.’ In the lowering crimson light, the wolfmask was lying strongly across his features. Fenella, glancing at him, thought: the Wolf is waking again, and experienced a cold frisson.
Nuadu turned his head slowly to look at her and his eyes glittered.
‘You are deep within the evil Dark Realm now, Fenella,’ he said softly. ‘You should be very wary indeed.’
Fenella said, ‘Of you?’ and met his eyes squarely.
‘Of everything.’ His eyes narrowed and red lights, reflections of the Bloodied Fields, shone deep within them. ‘How do you know I have not brought you here to give you to CuRoi in exchange for the King?’ said Nuadu.
‘I don’t know.’
He moved closer. ‘How do you know I have not brought you here under the order of CuRoi?’
Fenella said, ‘Have you?’ and thought: I will nor lower my gaze first! I won’t! But a tiny thread of doubt trickled across the surface of her mind and she thought: after all, I don’t know. He is quite right. But she stood very still, the light from the Fields casting its blood-laden shadows across them, and returned his stare, and saw that the Wolf was waking in truth now; it was in his eyes and it was in the curve of his hand and the thinning of his lips.
Nuadu said, ‘Be wary of me, Lady.’ He reached out and traced the line of her cheek lightly. ‘Do not trust me,’ he said, softly, and now there was no doubt about the wolfish note in his voice.
‘I don’t trust you,’ said Fenella. ‘Not entirely.’
‘But still you came here with me.’
‘To rescue the King.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Nuadu, very softly. ‘The King.’ His teeth gleamed whitely in a thin smile. ‘Yes, we must not forget him,’ he said. And then, abruptly, as if he was throwing off some unwished-for shadow, he said, ‘The Black Realm will wake all manner of darknesses, Fenella.’ Something unexpectedly gentle twisted his mouth. ‘Yet I think you have no darkness in you, Lady,’ he said. ‘I think you have never encountered any true darkness in your strange, lost world. But you may encounter it now.’ The red glint showed again. ‘Remember that I have a dark side. Remember that I am partly a Wolf.’
‘I shan’t forget,’ said Fenella, and stared at him, and felt a shiver of something that was partly fear, but partly desire. Because I have lain with this creature who is a half-Wolf, I have felt his strong surging passion and I have seen the vulnerable creature beneath … I don’t think I am afraid of the Wolf, she thought. But I think that so far I have only caught glimpses of it.
Nuadu led her forward, padding softly across the terrain, his head occasionally lifted to catch a sound. It was absurd to think that he seemed to know the way they should go, that he seemed to be choosing the paths unhesitatingly. But it was impossible to escape the thought that he might have been here before.
As they left the terrible Fields of Blood behind, the taunting chanting faded, and a charged, violent feeling stole over the air, rather like the heavy menace just before an exceptionally virulent storm. Fenella was conscious again of the feeling of standing at the edge of a precipice, looking down dizzily over a chasm, of dislocation. Perhaps this would pass. Perhaps she would become accustomed. Only — I don’t think I could ever be accustomed, she thought. I don’t think I could ever be accustomed to the tumbling vertigo and to the impression that everything here is distorted, askew, inequal.
They left the Fields of Blood with their gruesome harvests behind and turned in the direction of the Black Mountains, with their huge silhouettes, immense and towering and secretive, and tiny winking lights in their depths.
‘The Citadels of the Necromancers,’ said Nuadu, when Fenella pointed to them enquiringly. ‘Where the Sorcerers retreat from the world to weave their enchantments and plot their evil wars against the true Ireland.’
‘Fearsome,’ said Fenella, shuddering, because there was an awesome, isolated look to the Mountains and she could not help wondering what it would be like to be up there, deep within those terrible mountains, knowing that every light you saw belonged not to a friend who would take you in out of the night, but to evil sorcerers.
To their left were lakes and rivers, dark and with an oily film on their surface, as if the miasma of evil was rising from them like the stench from a swamp. They toiled onwards, climbing as the path wound up, feeling the air change, become colder, filled with the reek of evil. Several times red, scaly creatures with glinting eyes and ragged-edged wings flew straight into their faces and reached for Fenella’s hair with their claws and once a pair of screeching, ravaged-featured beings with the bodies of vultures and the faces of manic, grinning women flew overhead, and Fenella and Nuadu both ducked instinctively. But the creatures flew on quite purposefully, as if they had some destination and the strangers were of no interest to them. Fenella and Nuadu straightened up unscathed.
‘What were they?’ asked Fenella.
‘Harpies,’ said Nuadu. ‘Servants of the Dark Lords.’ He smiled. 'Minor servants, Lady.’
‘Then I hope,’ said Fenella, firmly, ‘that we do not meet any of the major servants.’
Nuadu shot her an amused look. ‘I think you would somehow retain a sens
e of humour in any danger,’ he said.
‘I think it might be the last thing that would go,’ said Fenella.
He regarded her, as if he might be learning her all over again, and Fenella, mindful of her decision to be friendly and cool and detached, smiled.
As they moved on they heard again, just under the surface of the landscape, the murmurings and the gloating whisperings they had heard from the Fields of Blood.
Yes, yes, these are two from the other Ireland, these are two who we can devour … Harvests for the Master, crops for the Black Reaper … Meat for the cauldrons that boil deep in the black sorcery chambers, and grist for the looms of necromancy that weave ceaselessly beneath the towers of the sorcerers …
Fenella found the whispering, mocking voices extremely sinister. She was rather glad when they seemed to fade as they neared the Black Mountains.
‘Up here?’
‘Yes. Will you mind, Lady?’
Fenella stood still, looking up at the towering shapes. ‘Ever onwards,’ she said, and grinned at Nuadu. ‘That’s something remembered and often quoted in my world. I suppose it has not yet been written as far as this one is concerned.’
Nuadu said, ‘I wish I had known your world.’
‘You wouldn’t have cared for it.’
‘No?’
‘Boring,’ said Fenella, shaking her head. ‘No adventure.’
‘Despite what you may be thinking,’ said Nuadu, rather wryly, ‘we do not always wage wars and challenge Soul Eaters here.’