by Sarah Rayne
‘The Scales will tip in my favour at last and I shall be free of the Everlasting Disease pronounced over me by the accursed Erin.’ He looked at Nuadu. ‘Your Lady cannot pronounce the spell she stole from me, this time,’ said the Robemaker. ‘There is really no escape for you.’ He chuckled and turned to Flame and said, with a dreadful lusting note in his voice, ‘And as for you, my dear, you shall be in my embrace tonight.’
Flame, who knew in a vague way about the Robe of Human Hands, and who had been trying to remember whether the rope-lights could be dissolved by any other spell, and if so, what it was, looked at him, and said, very loudly, ‘If you touch me, I shall kill you.’
The Robemaker laughed. ‘Puny creature,’ he said, and there was a note of indulgence in his voice now. ‘But I shall teach you to obey me.’
The Soul Eaters had formed a circle, and Reflection and the Frost Giantess had moved to the outer edges, each one now holding aloft a glittering spear of light, crimson-tinged and malignant. The lights cast an eerie red glow across the circle and Floy, who was nearest, saw that the Soul Eaters were standing waiting. At the centre was an immense pair of silver scales, etched with curious symbols, gleaming with a cold inner light.
Nuadu made a convulsive movement and then was still, and the Robemaker, turning his head, smiled from deep within the dark hood, and said, ‘Oh yes, Wolfprince, these are the Silver Scales, wrought by the Gallan Gnomes for Erin all those decades ago. They have been used to measure the years of my thralldom to Erin’s sorcerers. But soon now, that will end, and I shall be whole again! I shall be a true Lord of the Dark Realm once more!’ He pulled on the ropes and both chariots slid forward and the five prisoners were tipped on to the floor.
Chapter Forty-six
The five prisoners lay at the exact centre of the Soul Eaters’ circle. Reflection and the Robemaker had lit flaring torches and stuck them into the ground and the fire was leaping upwards into the night sky, scarlet and orange, casting huge, fantastical shapes everywhere. The dark forms of the Soul Eaters stood out against the light, evil and sinister, their only colour the glinting ancient eyes set deep into the bony, homed skulls. As they moved, great black shadows moved with them, dancing and flickering grotesquely.
Reflection and the Frost Giantess stood on the outer rim of the circle between the flambeaux. The Frost Giantess was writhing and undulating and at her back were the hovering shapes of the Wraiths, frost-rimed and avid, their sharp fingers reaching out, occasionally touching the leaping torch-fires, causing them to spit and hiss. Reflection, on the Frost Giantess’s left, was wrapped in the dark silken cloak, holding aloft the slender spear. Flame sent her a furious look and Reflection laughed, her eyes brilliant with malice.
‘Begging for mercy, child!’
‘No,’ said Flame shortly.
‘Soon,’ said Reflection, ‘you will wish you had not defied me.’
Flame said, ‘You would let that evil creature feed me to the Soul Eaters?’ And stared at Reflection and wondered whether she had ever really known her at all.
Reflection gave a shrug. ‘After all, my dear, it was your choice to consort with a Human,’ she said, and looked across to Floy. ‘You could have had the Gruagach King. You could have had the great ritual of the Fire River at your wedding, with your father to lead you forward to bathe in the Eternal Flame. As it is … ’ She glanced to the waiting Soul Eaters and Flame thought a tinge of regret touched her face. ‘As it is, you will end in the Robemaker’s embrace and your soul will be taken and your body thrown to the River of the Dead,’ said Reflection, and turned her head away as if the matter had ceased to interest her.
Nuadu lay where he had fallen, still and silent. The crimson mask bound the lower part of his face tightly and he could feel the rope-lights biting into his flesh. His mind was a tumble of anger and bitterness; he thought: we cannot all be given to the Soul Eaters! There has to be another way for us to outwit these creatures! But if I call to the Wolves, then I am taking up the mantle of my brother … No, cried Nuadu in silent anguish. No, I do not want it. I cannot do it! And I do not believe it is the only way. We shall outwit these creatures by some other means.
Floy had said little, but his mind was searching for a means to create a diversion. He thought that if one of them could somehow work the rope-lights loose, it would be possible to run from the circle, creating a diversion, and giving the others an opportunity to vanish into the night. Could they do that?
The Robemaker was standing before the Soul Eaters. Their massive wings were folded about their wizened scaly bodies like leather cloaks and their skulls tilted as if they were about to pronounce some kind of judgement. Before them stood the immense Silver Scales of Justice, sold, pure, silver, gleaming first silver and then red as the moonlight and then the leaping firelight caught them. They were larger than the prisoners had expected; they were almost the height of a man. Nuadu, who knew a very little of their history, knew he was seeing another of Tara’s lost treasures. First the Ebony Throne, and now the Silver Scales of Justice …
He thought the Scales had been wrought by the Gnomes of Gallan for the High King Erin. They were imbued with magic, for the Gnomes had consulted with Erin’s sorcerers and a rather unusual enchantment had been woven into the silver. Nuadu thought that Erin had issued very specific instructions regarding the Scales, so that he might use them in the judging of miscreants at his Court. The legend said that Erin had believed in an unusually exact form of justice: whoever brews the sour wine must needs drink it, he had said, and the Scales had enabled him to actually weigh a sin, and pronounce a punishment precisely in accordance with it, no more and no less than the offence deserved. And I suppose, thought Nuadu, studying the Scales, there are worse methods of dealing with miscreants. He remembered that it had been Erin who had ordered the Court sorcerers to pronounce over the Robemaker the terrible Enchantment of Eternal Disease.
The two dishes of the Scales, one on each side of the central column, were easily visible; they were deep and their outer edges were embellished with strange symbols. Nuadu thought he could make out the Tree of Amaranth, which was one of the earliest known magical symbols, and the House from which all sorcerers must descend. But there were others, whose origin he could not guess at. In the red-tinged night, the Scales were unearthly and faintly sinister, and Nuadu thought that although Erin had used them for good, since then they had become imbued with the malevolence of the Soul Eaters and their grisly work.
The right-hand dish was much higher than the left; it swung high up in the frame of the machinery, light and floating, as if there was barely any substance in it at all. Nuadu thought: yes, of course, that is where they weigh the souls against the other side.
The other side …
The left-hand dish was weighted so heavily that it was almost touching the ground. The silver, so carefully wrought by the Gnomes in Gallan decades earlier, was nearly hidden by the contents of the pan; they foamed and writhed and spilled over the edges, alive and grotesque.
The Draoicht Tinneas Siorai … The Enchantment of Eternal Disease. The spell which had held the Robemaker captive and helpless for centuries, creeping beneath his skin, eating away his flesh and his bones and his marrow.
It was a heaving nearly formless mass of tiny embryonic creatures; of half-formed foetuses, each of them covered with ulcerated leprous skin, bloodied and amorphous, most of the tiny inchoate creatures sightless, their clawed or webbed hands reaching out blindly. A thin film of membraneous skin covered them, as if the creatures had been flung indiscriminately into a sack and the sack’s opening tightly sealed. Atop the sack was a discoloured skull, its bones befouled with putrescence, its eye sockets and nose cavity packed tight with wriggling maggot-creatures giving it the semblance of dreadful life.
At the sight of the squirming creatures, the Robemaker gave vent to a gasping cry and drew back. Nuadu heard him hiss, ‘The Draoicht Tinneas Siorai!’ and at once the heaving creatures on the Scales seemed to pulsate
and reach their tiny incomplete hands out to him. Single eyes bulged out against the sack’s surface and the Robemaker shuddered and threw up a hand to protect himself. Nuadu glanced to where Floy was watching and Floy looked at him. They shared a thought: here, at last, is something the Robemaker fears! And: can we somehow use this?
The Soul Eaters were moving closer; the ancient wizened one that Nuadu thought had spoken in the Cruachan Cave and who appeared to be their leader, said, ‘You flinch, Master Robemaker. And yet you should not, for it may be that the hour of your deliverance is at hand. It may be that the curse ordered by Erin is about to be outweighed.’ The old eyes slewed round to where Nuadu and the others lay. ‘Nuadu of the Silver Arm.’ He regarded Nuadu, and Nuadu stared back. ‘You thought to cheat us, Wolfprince,’ said the Soul Eater, softly.
‘You thought to deceive us,’ said another.
‘To trick us into allowing you and your Lady into the Dark Realm, where no creature may go unless permitted by a Lord of that Domain,’ said a third.
‘And for that alone,’ said the first, ‘you will certainly die and render up your soul.’ He turned to where the Robemaker was standing waiting, and Nuadu saw that there was an almost submissive droop to the Robemaker’s head now, as if he was saying: I have done what I can and now I am in your hands. Nuadu saw Fenella’s eyes widen in something that might have been pity and, nearby, Flame was almost certainly regarding the Robemaker with compassion.
And then the Robemaker straightened up, and began pulling at the rope-lights which held Fenella and Snodgrass. Floy felt Fenella’s mind lurch with fear and pain as she was dragged forward, and saw, Nuadu’s dark, slanting eyes show red.
Fenella felt the talons of the nearest Soul Eater reach out and pluck her from the ground. The shadows of the others fell across her and she saw them towering above her, their wizened faces suddenly avid and greedy, their talons opening and closing.
Our first victim … The leading Soul Eater was saying something about a young, unspoiled Human … They had unfurled their wings, so that the stark outlines threw great jagged shadows everywhere. They were baring their claws and there was something icily predatory about the movement. Fenella stared up at them, her mind tumbling with terror, and could see no way of escaping.
Nuadu had not moved, but the words uttered by Fael-Inis earlier had branded themselves onto his mind.
You cannot avoid your fealty for much longer, Wolf prince … You are what you are …
I cannot call to the Wolves! cried Nuadu, in silent anguish. There must be another way!
I have shown you the way, and now you must take the way, or let Ireland be overrun by the Dark Realm …
Cold clarity descended on Nuadu’s mind. He thought: if I must, then I must. But perhaps there is another way.
Lifting his head, he pronounced, in ringing tones, the ancient enchantment which had come down to him, which had been a part of his blood for as long as he could remember and which must be answered by the most mystical, most inHuman beings in all Ireland. They had saved him from the Robemaker once before; they had answered the summons then, and they could not fail to do so now.
The magical faery sidh, the elven race who were rarely seen in Ireland, but who were bound, by the chains of an old, old enchantment, to aid the Royal House of Tara at times of extreme peril.
At once the darkness was splintered and the darting blue and green outlines of the sidh filled the skies, lighting the night to turquoise brilliance. Dozens upon dozens of pairs of iridescent wings beat the air angrily and Fenella, tumbling back from the Soul Eaters’ circle, felt the brilliance sear her vision painfully.
‘Look away!’ cried Nuadu, on his feet at the centre of the cascading swooping sidh. ‘If you value your sanity and your five senses, do not look directly at them!’
The Robemaker had fallen back, his hands flung to shield his ravaged, vulnerable face, and at once the rope-lights, no longer held by the force of his evil will, dissolved. As Floy pulled Fenella and Flame clear, the Soul Eaters let out a single rasping shriek of fury and moved together.
There was a singing on the air now, the eerie, enchanted singing of the sidh who were cold and soul-less and who were said to hunt Men for sport, but who had sworn allegiance to the Royal House of Tara at the beginning of her history. Nuadu, his arms about Fenella, knew the sound for a seldom-heard hunting song and, although his skin prickled with the cold allure and the icy seduction of the singing, he thought: they are hunting down the enemy of the true Ireland. I believe it will be enough. I believe they will vanquish the Robemaker and the Soul Eaters.
Great livid streaks of turquoise fire were splitting the skies as the sidh darted, arrow-straight, at the eyes of the Soul Eaters and Reflection’s armies.
Floy and Nuadu bounded forward now, seeing their chance: Fenella had just time to see that Nuadu was leaping straight on to the dark figure of the Robemaker and that Floy had knocked Reflection to the ground and was grappling with her.
The skies sizzled with the sidh’s angry brilliance and with the flying crimson shafts from Reflection’s spear. The air was becoming thick and clotted with enchantments and with showers of blood and with the fire rising from the flambeaux.
The sidh flew straight at the Soul Eaters and Fenella, trying hard to shield her eyes, remembering all the warnings, glimpsed, on the outer rim of vision, creatures of gliding blue and green fire. At her side, Flame said, softly, ‘They will take their eyes.’ As she spoke, the Soul Eaters began to screech, terrible agonised sounds of rage and pain and fear. The strong, sweet humming swelled on the air again and the Soul Eaters began to fall from the skies like dried-out sticks, their wings flapping and broken. The sidh swarmed over them and their music flooded the night again, strange and inHuman, beautiful and un-earthly.
Floy, seeing that the Soul Eaters were vanquished, had wrested the spear from Reflection. He snapped it in two and then four across his leg. At once, Reflection slid away, darting into the night, a slender, silken shape. Fenella felt Flame’s hand come down on hers and knew that Flame was thinking: should we go after her?
‘We should never catch her,’ said Fenella. ‘But she has left the spear … ’and then, suddenly, ‘Flame-the spear!’
‘It’s broken,’ said Flame. ‘But its power won’t be broken.’
‘If we each take a piece of it,’ said Fenella, pulling Flame forward, ‘we can at least bring down the Storm Wraiths! Come on!’
They raced across the battlefield together. Fenella snatched up two pieces of Reflection’s spear of light and Flame took two more, and they both hurled the pieces at the Storm Wraiths. The air spat with tiny, diamond-bright chippings of light and the Wraiths shrieked with pain and fury, darting away into the night sky.
Floy had snatched up a sword and gone straight to the Frost Giantess’s litter. She reared up at once, the neck-fins distending, beating the air with her tiny hands. Floy leapt straight at her, lifting his sword high and bringing it down on the squirming undulating mass of cold flesh. Pale blood spurted and half covered him. He shuddered but lifted the sword and drove it home again. The Geimhreadh let out a terrible wailing and tried to crawl away, but the sidh swooped down, slicing at her with their ice-blue fire, and Floy, trying to avoid looking directly at them, saw the brilliant wings rise into the air again. He turned back and saw that the Geimhreadh was helpless on the ground, the thick, worm-like body flailing. He fell on her again and hacked at her until she lay still, her shapeless neck half severed.
Close by, Nuadu was facing the Robemaker; he thought he had inflicted some kind of sword wound already, but the Robemaker had whipped away, as slithery as a snake, and had stood facing Nuadu, a great spinning lattice of crimson lights surrounding him like armour. Nuadu was half blinded by the lights, but he advanced cautiously, a step at a time, the sword held out before him, his eyes narrowed. The Robemaker laughed and it was the terrible wet, bubbling laugh that Nuadu remembered. ‘You can not get near to me, Wolfprince,’ he cried.
‘For all your precious sidh, you cannot penetrate my armour!’ He gave another of his shrieking laughs and moved farther back and, as he did so, Nuadu saw forming, directly behind the cloaked shape, against the sky, the fiery outline of an immense door. The sidh flew at it at once but the outline held, and Nuadu could see that they were dashing themselves against it uselessly.
‘You see!’ shrieked the Robemaker triumphantly. ‘You see, Wolfprince! I shall escape you. I shall escape into the Black Realm, where the Dark Lords will rise to my aid!’ He turned about, the dark cloak swirling and, as he did so, slowly and menacingly, inch by terrible inch, the great Doorway began to open.
Floy was still standing by the mutilated body of the Frost Giantess, his eyes on the hooded figure of the Robemaker, outlined in the terrible glowing Doorway. He was holding the sword that had killed the Frost Giantess, but he thought that swords and knives would be of no avail against this one. Wasn’t there something they could use? Wasn’t there something that would defeat him, or, at the very least, disable him? With the thought came a stirring, a ruffle of memory, something tugging at the edges of his mind. What? Something that had happened earlier tonight, was it? Something that had made him think: so, after all, there is something that the Robemaker fears? After all there is something we could turn against him if we have the chance.
Of course! thought Floy, comprehension flooding his mind. Of course! The Draoicht Tinneas Siorai. The Enchantment of Eternal Disease.
He moved at once, swiftly and surely, crossing the stretch of ground to where the Silver Scales still stood, silent and sinister, gleaming dully in the moonlight. The Robemaker was silhouetted against the gaping Doorway and the opening was almost at its widest point now. At any minute the Robemaker would move back into the beckoning evil land and the Dark Ireland would swallow him. Once that had happened, there could surely be no following him. I have to stop him, thought Floy. Somehow I have to stop him, and I believe that this is the only way.