by Sarah Rayne
Several of them were seizing the nimfeach, knocking them flat to the ground and then straddling the creatures’ thick necks and riding them obscenely, their jutting penises forced into the nimfeach’s lipless mouths. They shrieked with glee and then rolled off again. Andrew, horrified and sickened, looked wildly around the banqueting hall, searching for a weapon of some kind, anything …
Rumour’s head was thrown back, and her slender white throat was pulsing as she fought for breath. The distended triangular fin of the Fisher King was swollen now, erect and rampant, fanning out behind him like a monstrous jagged wing, a frame, a tail-feather … It enfolded the two of them in a cloak of horny flesh.
The Fomoire were chuckling their evil delight, and the nimfeach were writhing between them like huge, glistening slugs. They tumbled over and over in a hideous blur of skin and scales and lashing barbed tails and claws.
Rumour was scarcely moving; she was locked tight in the embrace of her fearsome lover, and she had seen, and then felt, the terrible fin curl round them, and this was the most repulsive thing yet. The fin was cold and clammy and loathsome and, as it furled about them, the Fisher King groaned; his eyes glittered, and he drove into Rumour brutally. Rumour, the pain of the spikes tearing into her, closed her eyes, and murmured a brief enchantment of balm. Nearly there. Nearly over. Surely he will soon be done. Surely I shall soon feel the spurting of his loathsome seed, and it will be done, and we shall somehow escape.
She felt it then, the quickening, the tightening of the creature’s muscles, the swelling of blood vessels, and a tiny part of her that was untouched and untarnished by the foulness, recognised that, in this, Coelacanth was little different from a Human lover. Could he be wounded at the moment of climax? For he would be vulnerable then, thought Rumour. She remained still, concentrating on calmness, keeping her mind fixed solely on remaining silent, on not letting him hear or see her agony and revulsion.
Coelacanth moved convulsively, and the barbs tore into her womb, inflicting such sudden and overwhelming agony that Rumour’s vision blurred, and her mind spun. The banqueting hall, the watching nimfeach, the Fomoire, and Andrew — oh yes, dear Andrew was still with her! — swam and grew distant.
Finish! screamed Rumour silently, beyond thought of spellspinning now, certainly in too much pain to be able to call down power of any kind. Spend your filth in me, and let us be done! And with the thought, the Fisher King threw back his head and gave a screeching, guttural cry, and Rumour felt razor-sharp pain surge into her, and knew it for the cold, tainted seed of Coelacanth, and thought: cold, poisonous fish blood and evil, tainted fishjuice! Icy milt, the seed of the sea-creature! I shall never feel clean again!
He pulled away from her, and Rumour fell as the spikes tore at her, feeling the repulsive cold stickiness on her thighs, knowing that she was bleeding, feeling her own blood mingle sickeningly with his cold juices, stinging and hurting, hating the pain, but hating far more the intimacy. But I did not cry out! she thought, triumphantly. I did not even give vent to a gasp of pain! And now we shall see what can be done! thought Rumour and, as she half sat, half knelt before the Fisher King, her mind was already sliding into the spell patterns that would summon power.
The Fisher King had fallen back against the Silver Throne of Aillen mac Midha, and he was watching her with his cold, pale eyes.
At length, he said, ‘So still you do not submit, BitchHuman.’
A frown touched the flat, scaly features, and Rumour said, ‘I shall never submit, filth.’ And was glad to hear that her voice was contemptuous and defiant. ‘If that is the worst you can do, Coelacanth, I do not think much of it,’ said Rumour and, even as the words formed on the air, she saw Andrew’s eyes darken with horror, and knew at once that the words, spoken out of bravado and out of sheer relief that she had endured the ordeal, were screamingly dangerous. It did not need Andrew’s involuntary movement to tell her she had overreached.
The Fisher King was smiling, and there was such cold triumph in the smile that Rumour shivered. ‘Oh, my dear, we have not yet begun,’ he said. ‘There is so much more I am going to do to you. So very much more, my dear.’ He nodded to the waiting nimfeach, ‘Take her to the Crystal Pools,’ he said. ‘Shave her hair and anoint her.’ And then, to Rumour, who was staring up at him, her eyes huge and fearful, ‘Let us see how you respond to my other hunger,’ said the Fisher King.
*
The nimfeach half dragged Rumour from the banqueting hall. She was dimly aware that Andrew was still with her: he was being guarded by several of the Fomoire and prodded by their spears to make him follow. She thought that he was fighting them, struggling against the nimfeach who held him, but there were too many. They twisted his arms behind his back, their lumpish muscles moving beneath the pale skin, squirming about him like monstrous worms. The Fomoire jabbed his skin with their spears. Rumour flung him an agonised look, and felt at once a bolt of comfort and strength from him.
Continue to have courage, Rumour! We shall outwit them somehow!
But they were overpowered; there were only the two of them, and physical violence was useless. Rumour, trying desperately to calm her mind, murmured yet another incantation, and saw the Fisher King deflect it with contemptuous ease. It flickered on her mind that they would take her to the great Silver Cavern — what had Coelacanth said: that it was the Elven King’s tomb? — and hope rose in her, for perhaps she could in some way turn the sidh’s sorcery to her own ends.
But the nimfeach slithered and crawled along the empty, echoing galleries, dragging her into a great, dimly lit cavern with deep, clear crystal pools set into the silver floor. The cool water-light lapped against the pale walls, and there was a feeling of learning and repose and tranquillity. For a moment Rumour thought the pools were simply great shining discs of silver, but as they passed the nearest, it rippled, its reflection moving gently on the walls, and Rumour understood that this was the sidh’s library. And in those pools are the stored spells of countless centuries! If I could only break free and reach them!
But the crystal pools, where once Maelduin had dived and swum, and where he had studied the Cadence, were beyond her reach. The nimfeach were dragging her to the centre of the room, and the Fomoire were leaping and prancing, pointing to her with horrid glee, uncoiling lengths of thin, leathery rope. They fell on Rumour, and as they bound her hands behind her back, Rumour felt the cold smoothness of the ropes, and knew that they had been fashioned from strips of Human skin.
But I think I am beyond caring about that, she thought. I think I am beyond repulsion. A part of her mind noted that her feet and legs had been left free, and she at once thought: does that mean he will do it to me again? For the first time her resolve wavered.
The Fomoire had circled her; they had produced glinting knives, razor-edged, wickedly sharp and slightly curved. Rumour struggled and, as she did so, she caught a convulsive movement from Andrew. But as he tried to break free again, the nimfeach dragged at his arms, twisting them behind his back, wrenching at the sockets painfully.
The Fomoire were leaping and whirling into their grisly dance, circling their prisoner, shrieking with malicious glee.
Peel her smooth, shed her fur.
Moult the Human, cast her hair,
Let the Master swallow her.’
As Rumour shrank back, they advanced on her, still dancing, turning completely round as they whirled, and then falling back into place again. They reached for her long, rippling hair, letting it slide through their wizened hands, chuckling and nodding, brandishing the glinting knives.
‘Leave the scalp, leave the skin,
Let the Master swallow it in.
Peel her smooth and peel her fair,
Shed her hair and moult her fur.’
Rumour’s head was jerked back so that her spine arched and the tip of her skull was almost touching the ground. Her hair swung loose, brushing the ground, and the Fomoire yelled with delight and closed about her. There was the cold touch of t
he razors then, the scrape of the thin, glinting blades against her skin. A sudden silence descended on the chamber, and Rumour and Andrew both remembered with sickening vividness how the Fomoire had worked on Echbel, how they had fallen suddenly and completely silent in this way, directing their concentration to their grisly task.
Rumour felt Andrew’s thoughts flow out to her again.
Courage, Rumour … This will be unpleasant, but you will endure it …
Yes, thought Rumour valiantly. Yes, whatever they intend to do, I shall endure it. I endured that filth inside me. I won’t let them see that I’m frightened. I’ll be angry and disdainful, that’ll be the thing to be.
She half closed her eyes and sent the now-absorbed Fomoire contemptuous looks, and felt, all the while, the terrible sharpness of the blades, and then the heavy, silken weight of her hair falling to the ground. There was a whisper of sound, and a cold, numb feeling, and she knew that they had taken her hair. She struggled to get her hands free, to reach up and cover her poor shorn head, because there was something so raw, so exposed about the feeling that it was scarcely to be borne. But the skin-ropes held; the Fomoire had bound them tightly, and they cut cruelly into her wrists. Real anger surged up within her then, and she thought: how dare these loathsome creatures treat me like this! Her mind reached for a spell, something vicious, something cruel and sharp that would tear into them and rip them apart, but anger and pain had blunted her mind, and the patterns she sought eluded her.
‘And now the oils,’ cried the Fomoire.
‘Anoint the Human!’
‘Grease her for the Master!’
They whirled and danced, chanting as they went.
‘Human grease and Human fat
Slither and slime, oil and wax.’
‘Bring the cauldrons!’ cried several of them, and Rumour saw two of them carrying in a black cauldron, dragging its bulk across the silver floor with a scraping sound. They placed it at the centre of the room, a black menacing crucible, the rim on a level with the lolling, dead Human heads of the Fomoire’s skins, the sides pitted. A rank, rancid stench gusted out from its interior.
Andrew and Rumour stared at it in horror, and Andrew fought to break free.
The Fomoire danced about the cauldron, the Human skins flying outwards, the dead heads rolling, and then they approached the cauldron, leaning over, their tiny, clawlike hands reaching into its depths, scooping up handfuls of not-quite-colourless grease, chuckling and screeching as gobbets of it slopped on to the floor.
‘Anoint her well, boys!’
‘Make it slick, boys!’
‘Don’t tread in the fat!’
‘Human fat, slither and slime!’
They leapt and cavorted back and forth between Rumour and the cauldron, standing on tiptoe to reach into its depths, ladling the repulsive, lardlike substance out in their hands, and slathering it over her skin. Thick, slightly warm fat ran into her eyes, and then into her mouth, trickling down her throat, so that she coughed and retched. It was like being smothered in mucus, in blubber, in every loathsome fluid ever imagined. She was trapped in a mucus bag, in a slimy, soupy bladder of Human grease and Human fat, boiled by the Fomoire from the flesh and the bones of their victims, melted and clarified, and then tipped into the black cauldron.
As she lay, gasping, half blinded, fighting down rising nausea, the door opened and the Fisher King walked in.
Chapter Seventeen
He stood framed in the arched doorway with the silver curlicues and the elaborate carvings, watching her, and he seemed to tower above them all, ten feet high at the very least. Rumour, her vision almost completely obscured by the warm grease, saw that the monstrous fin was distended and erect again, and that the barbed phallus reared up between the scales that covered his upper thighs.
The nimfeach held her firmly but, as the Fisher King moved closer, they stood back. Rumour struggled upwards, and caught a movement from Andrew, as if he might be trying to break free. But at once the Fomoire were there, surrounding them both, grinning through their slitted, Humanish cloaks, ready to pounce.
The Fisher King stood looking down at her, his eyes glittering, the scales shining greyly in the light from the pools. He nodded to the Fomoire and the nimfeach, as if satisfied, and stood poised on the edge of the largest crystal pool. Its surface rippled faintly, and the Fisher King dived, in a single smooth movement, into the water. There was a brief glimpse of his sleek body, streaming through the water, and then the waters churned and his head emerged, the water pouring from it in shining droplets. Torn fragments and shreds of the sidh’s ancient spells spattered his body, and he brushed them off impatiently, and turned to look at Rumour; and the swollen fin reared up out of the water behind him.
He turned to the waiting Fomoire and said, ‘Throw her in!’
*
The film of grease was still blurring Rumour’s vision, so that although she heard the Fisher King’s imperious command, she could barely see the Fomoire move to surround her.
There was the sudden horrid feeling of the Fomoire’s claws, and the clammy fin-hands of the nimfeach lifting her, several losing their grasp because of the slippery oil, so that she fell hitting her shoulder against the floor. And then they had a firmer hold, they were lifting her, and there was the sudden cold scent of the water as she was flung towards it.
Her body hit the crystal pool with a flat, sickening sound, and Rumour felt, through the layers of grease, the shock of the icy water stinging her skin, as if it was being pierced by hundreds of tiny, sharp needles. Her shaven scalp felt as if knives were tearing at it, and she gasped and threshed wildly, trying to free her bound wrists, trying to see better, struggling to escape.
The instant she hit the water, the Fisher King dived again, darting through the pool directly beneath her. Rumour felt him brush her legs and twine his hands about her ankles; cold, webbed, dragging her down. There was a moment when the waters were over her head, and she was seeing the wavering depths of the pool with the ancient, priceless library of magic, the beautiful, intricate enchantments created by Aillen mac Midha.
The cold water had revived her a little. Rumour kicked out, feeling her feet brush scaly thighs, feeling him pull her down deeper, guessing that his intention was not to kill her yet, only to half drown her so that she would not be able to fight. And then she was pushed upwards, and the cold wet body was pressed close to her, and it was repulsive, but he was thrusting her out into the air again …
The Fisher King pushed her half out of the water, so that she broke the surface, gasping and fighting for breath. His head appeared, sleek and round on the pool’s surface, and Rumour was aware of his hands reaching for her under the water again.
He pulled her to him, the water slowing his movements, making them very nearly languorous. I shall bear it, thought Rumour although her courage was almost failing her now. I will bear it, and I will survive it! The rearing phallus pressed against her again, and she silently cried out, Oh no, please, not again …
But he made no attempt to force apart her legs, and Rumour realised that his excitement was no longer sexual.
She willed herself to be calm, feeling him holding her, feeling how slowly he moved, wanting him to do whatever he intended to do, wanting him to get it over, trying to think of a way to escape.
He did not enter her. He reared partway out of the water, silver droplets streaming from his body, the scales glittering, the monstrous fin erect behind him.
And then he was above her, curving over her, his head directly over hers, his body bending over, his head was drooping forward, boneless, fluid, repulsive …
His mouth began to open. It opened and stretched wider than she had imagined any creature’s mouth ever could stretch. Rumour writhed, churning the water to great foamy waves, but he held her firmly, his flat wide mouth stretched so wide that she could no longer see his features; he was simply a monstrous, gaping fish maw. There were no teeth, but there were ridges of jaw-bone, gleaming
whitely, crusted with some kind of growth, greyish-white and more loathsome than anything she had ever visualised.
There was a sound of chanting somewhere close by, but Rumour by now saw only the Fisher King’s wide brutal mouth, and felt only the pushing barbed phallus, hard and throbbing with obscene lust.
Her stomach lifted with nausea as the tainted stench of his breath gusted into her face. There was a moment when the shape of his head was directly above her, blotting out the light, grinning and salivating, dripping thick mouth-fluids over her, and then the membranous lips closed over her shaven head, wet, flabby, sucking … Her reason spun wildly and panic possessed her almost completely, and she thought: he is going to eat me … he is going to suck me into his mouth and down through his gullet and into his stomach … He is pure fish now, and fish swallow their prey whole …
The great grinning mouth was closing over her head; it was covering her eyes, sucking her in … His mouth was sliding down over her face, so that she was fighting for breath, and his stench was all about her: she was drowning in the poisonous stench of the creature’s saliva …
There was a wet, sucking sound, and Rumour felt her waist gripped by the webbed hands, and her head pushed further down …
Darkness closed about her, and her vision was shot with whirling red lights … There was a suffocating, drowning feeling, and she thought: but I cannot drown inside the creature’s gullet! and then she was being pushed down and down; his hands were reaching for her hips, he was forcing her into his mouth.
The light shut off completely, and the world was spinning and her lungs were bursting for air, and it was ending, it was ending, she was being forced down, down through the soft tissues of the creature’s maw, down into the distending stomach …
*
As the Fisher King began to force Rumour’s head into his wide, grinning mouth, Andrew drew in a deep breath and flexed his muscles to shake off the nimfeach and bound forward. Anger was pouring into him, for how dared this monstrous creature treat Rumour with such contempt?