by Sarah Rayne
For Rumour there was a brief, terrible moment when her senses stirred and Chaos’s dark glowing eyes awoke a dreadful response. Desire sliced through her from breast to womb, and she tore her gaze from him and looked down at the ground.
He said, very softly, ‘Let us say that for the moment I prefer the child. But we shall meet again, Lady, and I shall remind you of your offer to me.’
He turned back to Theodora, who was struggling against the silver chains in the chariot. ‘The Amaranth heir,’ he said again, and his voice was silky with satisfaction. ‘Many will fight me for you, Princess, but they shall not take you from me.’ He looked across at the Amaranths, and fervour blazed in his eyes. ‘I shall keep this one,’ he said. ‘You may send your puny Armies against me; you may revive the ridiculous Sorcery Wars in which you all fought so uselessly and so profitlessly, but I shall keep her.’
‘There will be others of your world who will want her,’ said Rumour, and Chaos nodded.
‘Oh yes, Lady,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, they will all covet her. But I shall never give her up, not if I have to plunge the Dark Ireland into internal War. Not if there is necromantic Civil War in the Black Realm for decades ahead. I shall turn the Amaranth Flame, the accursed Sacred Flame of your House, into the ebony fire of necromancy. It may take many years, but I shall do it. Your Princess will eventually sit at my right hand and rule the Black Domain with me.’
Without warning, he looked back at Rumour, and now the smile was warm and gentle. ‘We shall certainly meet again, Lady,’ he said. ‘And I look forward to it, for you will be a worthy foe and a stimulating lover.’
He sketched a brief bow, and turned back to the chariot, gesturing imperiously to his henchmen. At once, Murder took up the chariot’s reins, his cloak hissing and swirling, Anarchy beside him. Misrule leapt on to the seat, the sly golden mask glinting evilly, and the Lord of Chaos stepped into the chariot. He lifted a slender white hand again, and the chariot turned, the great millwheels striking sparks of fire.
The Gristlen leapt forward, but the chariot was becoming bathed in dazzling light and the heels of the Fomoire were already vanishing over the edge of the Well.
The Gristlen’s roar of frustration and fury split the Cave, and reverberated off the ancient walls. It reared up from its hunched, cringing stance to its full height — eight feet at least! thought the horrified Andrew — and its clenched fists were raised above its head as it bellowed its black rage. As the great chariot was swallowed by the gaping darkness of the Well, the Gristlen gave another of its terrible cries and, grasping the edges of the iron ladder, flung itself over the parapet and began to descend into the yawning maw.
There was the sound of its leathery skin rasping against the old dry bricks, and of stones being dislodged. But everyone in the Cavern heard the Gristlen’s feet smacking against the iron rungs as it descended, the sound gradually fading.
The deep thunderous roll of something being rolled back into place filled the Cavern again, and Andrew thought: the stone is being rolled back into place. The Doorway is closed.
But the Lord of Chaos had carried the Amaranth Princess and her brother into the heart of the Dark Realm of the necromancers.
And the Gristlen had gone after them.
Chapter Five
The sentinel sidh had long since ceased to bother much about the patrolling of the southern ramparts of the Elven King’s undersea City of Tiarna and the Palace of Nimfeach. It would have been a different matter if there had been any danger of anyone actually stealing up to the gates, of course, but everyone knew there was not the smallest possibility of this happening, because it never had happened, not even in the memories of the oldest sidh of them all.
The southern gate was not very vulnerable at all. It was not as if it was the eastern boundary, where the fabric between the True Ireland and the Dark Realm had become threadbare, so that it was occasionally possible to glimpse the black citadels of the necromancers, and the Crimson Lakes, and the NightFields with their sinister red harvests. One of the most venturesome of the sidh, who was called Inse, said he had once actually caught sight of the Lord of Chaos himself, riding out into his realm, with his fearsome servants, Murder, Anarchy and Misrule, in train behind him. But Inse was known to be rather over-imaginative, and this had never actually been proven.
The gates on the southern side of Tiarna were pale and studded with ivory and opal and pearl; they glinted coldly and occasionally threw out slender, white-hot spears of heat. The older sidh told how there was a spell composed of fire and ice in them, which Aillen mac Midha had commissioned from the sorcerers when the sidh had wrested the City from the nimfeach, the long-ago water-nymphs of Ireland. The Fire and Ice Enchantment was generally thought to be a very good deterrent to prowling Humans who might try to sneak into Tiarna, and penetrate Aillen mac Midha’s Silver Cavern. Humans did not like fire any more than they liked ice. The sidh did not like fire either, which was another good reason to avoid sentry duty at these particular gates. And while the sidh were all for welcoming Humans who could be pounced on and drained of Humanish senses (which was useful) and sometimes drained of Humanish seed as well (which was fun), Tiarna and her Water Caves were not intended for the prying eyes and clumsy, skin-covered, muscle-laced hands of Humans.
In fact none of the sidh had ever heard of any creature at all trying to get in, never mind Humans. This was another reason why sentinelling the southern boundary was the most tedious of all the sentinel duties. But it had to be done because you could not leave a single section of your boundaries unprotected, anyone knew that. Even the Humans knew it.
The sidh went out into the Humanish world and took whatever victims they could get, but that was within the rules. The Humans understood about it. They did not like it; most Humans fought quite hard to evade the sidh’s sinuous arms and serpentine embraces, and it was usually the ones who fought hardest whose souls and whose senses provided the best elixirs for the sidh’s music.
The four sidh on the southern ramparts were finding it very dull and extremely boring tonight. They had whiled away quite a good long time by recounting to one another the tremendous epic adventures of the High King, Aillen mac Midha, with especial attention to the remarkable time when he had clothed himself in the semblance of a Human and walked in the world of Men. This was always a good story; the grand old ballad, ‘Humanish Elven’, could be sung, and the echoes chased and caught and rewoven into the music. The sidh enjoyed darting about the tunnels in pursuit of echoes, and catching them and pouring them back into the music. And nobody ever grew tired of shuddering at the gruesomeness of the Ritual which Aillen mac Midha had had to submit to make himself visible to the Humans. This was a Ritual which was kept safely in the deepest and dimmest of all the crystal pools in Tiarna’s cool, water-lit library, down among the Scrolls of Language and the silver-bound Sacred Enchantments which the sidh had stolen from the long-ago Fisher King.
So far as any of them knew, the Ritual had only ever once been taken out and invoked. It was something that was so dangerous and so complex that it could only be contemplated in times of the severest danger, when either Tara, the Bright Palace, was threatened, and the sidh honour-bound to come to her aid, or when Tiarna herself was under siege.
It was a gruesome Ritual, the acquiring of Humanish form. It was generally believed that the skins of Humans were cold and leathery, and Inse had heard from the High King’s son, the Crown Prince Maelduin, that the skins made you feel heavy and sluggish. You felt muscles grating and bones crunching inside your skin, said Maelduin, with one of his slanting grins and one of his sudden, whiplash bounds upwards. Maelduin could sit absolutely motionless, drinking in the wisdom of the High King and the Elders; he could melt into the shimmering walls of the Silver Cavern itself if the mood took him, and the elder sidh would nod and smile and say that, after all, the Prince was absorbing the wisdom of his ancestors.
And then, without warning, something would spark his attention, and he would b
ound forward with one of his sudden pouring movements, and he would call his particular friends to his side, and light would stream over him like a shining cloak, and he would eye the others with his mischievous, brilliant eyes, and say: wasn’t it time they had a raid on the Humanish world, and stole a few Humanish senses? Wasn’t it time they drained the loins of some poor wretch of a Man of his thin, colourless seed? And he would be off, before the others had gathered their wits, darting through the tunnels with the rippling water-light, streaking up and up into the world of Men, sometimes taking them out through the ancient Well of Segais, sometimes taking one of the other routes, so that they might surface on the shores of Ireland’s beautiful, sun-drenched west coast, where the entire sea could look as if it was on fire, and where the gulls swooped and dived at the sidh and the sidh laughed and flew up at them, arrows of pure, turquoise light, with Maelduin at their head, leading them, laughing, and hurling bolts of pure, cool music into the air. Or they would come out at the heart of the Wolfwood, where you could slice through the layers of enchantment, and where you could cup in your hands the slanting rainbow mists of twilight, and where Maelduin would sometimes curl up on a grassy tussock and pour the sidh’s music into the deepening dusk, simply for the pleasure of seeing the woodland world come alive, and the creatures of the Wolfwood come dancing and obedient to his call.
All of which, said the older sidh, was actually very wasteful. The sidh’s music was not something you should squander on reckless fights with seagulls or the luring of frivolous squirrels.
If Maelduin had been on sentry duty at the south gate tonight, it would not have been in the least boring. He might have started up a Chaunt which might have summoned a few minor spells, with whom they could have held a contest of some kind. Or he might have taken a Lure from the oaken chest when the High King was not looking, and played it (Lures were nearly always composed of music, of course), just to see what kind of creatures would come in answer. Or he might dive into one of the crystal lakes in his father’s Palace, and come up streaming with silver droplets, the crystal water clinging to him like hoar frost, holding a Beguilement which he would unroll at their feet, so that they could hear one of the many hundreds of tales about the City of Tiarna and the Palace of Nimfeach, or about the long-ago battles between the sidh and the nimfeach people who were ruled by the cold, merciless Fisher King.
And then one of them, who was nearest the tunnel entrance, suddenly said, ‘There’s a shadow on the wall.’
The shadow was elongated and black, and very furtive indeed. The sidh were at once alert, becoming silent, nearly invisible wisps of blue-green smoke, only their long narrow eyes glinting in the dimness, only a faint iridescent shimmer betraying their presence.
The shadow was creeping nearer. It was a rather horrid loping shadow, as if its owner might be bending over, or as if it might be continuously looking back over its shoulder furtively, in case it was being followed.
The four sidh moved silently, banding together, melting into one for strength. This did not sound like a Human, but Humans were clever and cunning sometimes. It might be a subtle trap to decoy the guards away, so that Armies of Humans could pour down and overcome Aillen mac Midha’s kingdom. Strong sorcery, properly woven and authoritatively used, had been known to weaken the sidh’s powers. It had certainly been known to quench their music, and the sidh were very nearly powerless without their music.
The thought passed swiftly between them: this is no Human, but is it a creature we can use? Can we take its senses and its soul?
The dark shadow was with them now, and they could smell that it was not anything Human.
A Creature of Deep Dark Enchantment …
And then the creature said, in a thick and clotted voice, ‘Good sidhfolk, I am come to offer you the greatest prize in all Ireland.’ And, as the four sidh waited, not moving, not doing anything, the creature said, ‘If you will allow me into your City of Tiarna, and give me audience with the Elven King in his Silver Cavern at Nimfeach’s heart, I will show you the way to take, for your own, the entire Amaranthine race.’
Chapter Six
Cold, pure light poured into the Silver Cavern of the Elven King.
The four sentry sidh had snaked ropes about the dark intruder who had come stealing and sniffing down the watery tunnels into Tiarna; they had bound it with the silken cords spun in the underwater Seirician Caves and then they had drawn it through the pearl and opal-studded City gates, into the walled City and on through the Silvery Caverns to the Palace of Nimfeach.
Aillen mac Midha was seated on the immense carved Throne of the Nimfeach. The Prince, Maelduin, was at his right, for Maelduin would certainly not miss the chance of seeing the prisoner who had tried to infiltrate Tiarna. He might disrupt the Court if he was feeling particularly mischievous, but he was just as likely to listen, and perhaps even proffer some useful suggestions.
Aillen mac Midha had clothed himself in the half-garb of Human form which he assumed for these occasions. It was easier and swifter than the terrible Humanish Ritual; it gave him the semblance of Humanish form and it enabled him to converse with the prisoner in the clumsy, imprecise Humanish speech, assuming that the creature could use Humanish speech …
He was seated cross-legged at the centre of the great Throne of the Nimfeach, stolen from the Fisher King so many centuries ago, and although he had the silhouette of a Human, he would never have walked unnoticed in the Humanish world. There was a cool opalescence about him, and although his features were faintly Humanish, his eyes were huge and opaque. Several of the sidh thought that, like this, in this not-quite-Humanish, not-quite-sidh form, the Elven King was rather sinister. Inse thought it was because you were reminded that His Majesty had the ancient ability to alter his shape, and that there had always been something sinister about creatures who could do that.
The creature caught at the south gate of Tiarna was not especially sinister. It was ugly and repulsive, but nobody was regarding it as sinister. The sentries had pushed it forward until it was standing before the Elven King’s throne. Light fell across it, soft rippling watertight, casting its features and its body into cruel relief. The sidh who had caught it saw and felt for the first time that it was indeed a creature under a deep and terrible enchantment, and shuddered.
Aillen mac Midha did not move, but Maelduin, curled smokily at his right hand, felt a sudden alertness from him, and knew that his father believed that standing before them was a being that trailed with it the malignant cloak of necromancy, and that carried across its repulsive shoulders the terrible burden of a dark curse.
He thought: this creature has come from the Dark Realm, and therefore will have brought its aura of evil with it … It will have dragged its creeping stench of corruption into Tiarna, into our beautiful fragile world that we have so long guarded and that we have fought to bastion against the Dark Realm, and the clumsy brutalities of the Humanish …
The prisoner was taller than most Men would be, although it was not giantish; it was Humanish in shape with the arms and legs of Men. The joints were swollen and fibrous-looking, and it had enormous feet, with the toes webbed, and long-fingered, huge-knuckled hands. Its shoulders were hunched and its back was bent and lumpish and, when it moved, it did so in a lurching, loping fashion, occasionally touching the ground with its hands.
Its head was round and hard and hairless, and it had pale bulging eyes that glittered hungrily as they inspected the Silver Cavern, as if the creature might be saying to itself: oho and aha: here is a pretty little place and there is a nice comfortable Throne. Its cold eyes were set below a jutting brow, giving it a brutish look, and its face was concave at the centre, as if a huge fist might have pushed the features inwards. Beneath the bulging eyes was a snout, with two deep moist black caverns for nostrils; and beneath the snout was a fiat, gash-like mouth. Its skin was not the pale, almost-white colour of the Humans, nor did it have the satiny texture of Humanish skins, which the sidh found attractive. It had a thick
, tough hide, leathery and dull and dry.
Repulsive, thought Maelduin from his seat by the Throne. Has it indeed come from out of the Dark Ireland? And he remembered suddenly, one of the oldest and grisliest of all the legends: the immense Tanning Pit of the Dark Lords; the eternal abyss; the smoking Pit into which the Dark Lords cast those who had displeased them, leaving them there until their outer coverings were dried and smoked and until their shapes were unrecognisable. Until they were repulsive and gristly … Until they were Gristlens … I believe that this is a Gristlen, thought Maelduin, intrigued and repelled.
How must it be to walk the world dragging such a pitiful body about with you? What was it originally? Despite himself, Maelduin experienced a twinge of pity for the ugly, bewitched thing. The guard sidh had shackled it; manacles bound its legs and, when it held out its hands, they were clamped in the iron gyves used for Humans.
The Silver Cavern was filled with the cool, ice-blue light of the assembled sidh, and with the flickering watertight that rippled eternally on the Palace walls. Aillen mac Midha sat cross-legged, resting his chin tightly on his hand, his eyes changing colour, becoming narrow and glittering, studying the prisoner unblinkingly. When he spoke, a stir went through the Court, for the sidh were unused to the spoken word, and it was always a shock to hear it. Maelduin wondered, as he always did, how the Humans could bear such a shackled method of communication, and how they understood one another fully with these ugly, restricting sounds.
‘You are unexpectedly come to us, creature,’ said Aillen mac Midha in his tight, silvery voice, and although he used Humanish speech, a trace of the sidh’s own word-picture mind-imagery lingered, so that his words took shape and lay on the air for a while before melting and dissolving into droplets of pure silver.