by Sarah Rayne
It turned its head from side to side, and its flailing hands seemed to be searching for something, and this blind seeking movement was at once piteous and terrible. It was as if something alien and monstrous had been flung into a cold hostile world and was trying, in its sightless, newly born state, to seek assurance.
But beneath that, the Amaranths could see that there was calculating intelligence in its movements; it knew what it had to do to make itself ready for the world. Once its eyes were open, it would be sighted, it would not be blind and helpless in the manner of most newly-born things, it would not make those pitiful, searching gestures to where the dead Laigne lay …
It would be alive and sentient and rampant; there would be cold intelligence in the eyes, and there would be the undiluted evil and the raging greed of its sire in its cold, black soul …
The Gristlen’s seed, the foul spawn of the dark, evil creature who had dwelled in the noisome Tanning Pits, was in the room with them.
*
The three Amaranth ladies instinctively murmured a brief Ritual of Protection, and Great-aunt Fuamnach sketched the outline of the great Amaranthine Star before them.
Even like this, smeared and still partly blind from the thick dark blood and the pus-like matter, the Gristlen’s monster-child was the most evil thing any of them had ever encountered.
There was a deep overhanging brow, shadowing the eyes and almost obscuring them. The eyes struggled to open, and for a moment there was bewilderment and incomprehension in them. The creature turned again to Laigne’s body, reaching out with its hands, and the horrified watchers saw understanding dawn in its face.
She is dead and I am alone to fight these creatures before I have the power …
And then it seemed to gather huge strength into itself, and now its eyes shone with cold malevolence. It turned back to the room, and such bitter fury poured from it that for a moment it shone on the dark room, a baleful, crimson stream. Cecht, directly in line, felt it scorch her eyes, and flung up a hand to shield herself, falling back against the wall.
‘Cecht? Child, are you all right?’
Cecht said, ‘Yes. Yes, only dazzled.’ And put out a hand to pull herself up.
‘Anger,’ muttered Great-aunt Fuamnach, helping Cecht to her feet with one hand, and grasping her hazel wand more tightly with the other. ‘A nasty thing to fight, anger. But we’ll see what we can do.’ She lifted the hazel wand, and set a shaft of pure light sizzling through the air.
The creature lifted one claw-tipped hand, almost without looking, and deflected the light easily and carelessly, splintering it in mid-flight, so that tiny shards of glittering white fell to the ground.
‘Strong,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach, shaking her head. ‘By all the gods, it’s strong. Cecht, child, are you sure you are all right?’
‘Yes.’ Cecht was bruised and a bit dizzy by the shaft of fury that had seemed to spit from the creature’s eyes. The scorching light had stayed on her vision, playing tricks with it, as if she had been staring into the bright noon sun. Blinded by the Gristlen’s spawn? Oh no! Aloud, she said, ‘But I think we must send for the others …’
‘Of course we must,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach. ‘Mugain, what are you thinking of?’ and Herself of Mugain muttered something and scurried from the room at once, banging the door behind her.
‘Coward,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach, turning back to the bed. ‘Still, I daresay we can’t blame her! Please the gods she’ll bring the Tiarnan. Now, child, is there anything we can do to render this monster harmless for a time?’
But they both knew there would be little either of them could do by themselves. The creature was watching them; it was crouching on the bed, naked and still wet. From time to time it made a scuttling, circling movement on the bed, like an animal burrowing out a nest, and its hands plucked at the blood-drenched bed-gown of the dead woman who had given it birth, as if trying to wake her.
They could make out the creature’s features more clearly now. There was a flat, slash-like mouth, wide and lipless, rather horridly reminiscent of a sea creature. But its body was not hairless; there was a thatch of dark hair, coarse and ragged, and beneath it, they could see small ears, flat to the creature’s skull.
Cecht, who had never before encountered Corrupt Evil, was trying not to be afraid, but the Gristlen’s son was the most repulsive thing she had ever seen. It was the blending of ordinary Humanish blood and ordinary Humanish features with something that was not Humanish at all, that made Cecht’s skin creep with horror. She thought: it has ordinary ears, and although its nose is flat and wide-nostrilled, that is not so very inHuman. And it has eyes and lips and hair, it has arms and legs and bones and muscles …
But there was no neck; the creature’s jowls widened and sloped outwards until they joined the shoulders, and Great-aunt Fuamnach, who was sharp-sighted, said in a low voice, ‘Fins. Gills. Do you see? In its neck at the sides.’
‘Yes. Horrid.’
Great-aunt Fuamnach was becoming extremely angry at the way in which this bloodied morsel of repulsive life was able to send out its waves of fury and the billowing Corrupt Evil of the ancient Dark Realm. She pronounced again the Protective Ritual, this time snatching up her hazel wand, using it to trace the Amaranth Star on the floor around the bed. The creature was plainly gaining strength now; it darted at the constricting circle, and punched a hole through it with one taloned hand, and a low, throaty chuckle, glutinous and mocking, filled the room.
‘It is able to deflect everything we do,’ said Cecht, her eyes wide with horror.
‘We shall do better when the others arrive. That fool Mugain has had time to gather up the entire Palace by this time.’
‘Don’t take your eyes from it,’ said Cecht in a low, urgent voice, because it would be the most unbearable thing ever if the creature slid from the bed, and darted into hiding somewhere while they were not watching. It would be rather like having lost track of a particularly huge, particularly loathsome spider in your bedroom, or a slithering, writhing snake … Only it would be a million times worse.
‘I don’t intend to take my eyes from it,’ retorted Great-aunt Fuamnach.
They could see that its body was nearly shapeless and faintly scaled. But, thought Cecht, it is difficult to tell if it is scale or Humanish skin. Perhaps it was a blending of the two. Yes. Humanish and fish-creature. Disgusting. Between its thighs was a thicker sprinkling of scales, and large, perfectly formed genitals; the penis, barbed like a fletched arrow, hung down pendulously.
And then it moved slightly in the bed, a horrid, sudden, slithering movement, its muscles bunching and rippling, and they saw that at the base of its spine was a triangular shape, a tightly furled membranous structure, pale and cold-looking. A fin.
The two Amaranthine ladies looked at one another in horror, and then Cecht said, very softly, ‘Coelacanth.’ And then, ‘Coelacanth’s spawn,’ she said.
Great-aunt Fuamnach was watching the creature closely. When she spoke, there was a note of fear in her voice that no one had ever heard there before. But she said, ‘I believe so.’
The Fisher King’s seed. Then the Gristlen must have been Coelacanth himself,’ whispered Cecht. ‘Coelacanth thrown into the Pit of the Dark Lords and left for centuries until he became a Gristlen.’
‘Yes. He must have somehow incurred the wrath of the other Dark Lords,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach, staring.
‘This is his heir. This is the Fisher Prince,’ said Cecht, horrified, and at once the creature turned its terrible head to regard her, as if it had heard and understood. Its eyes were cold and filled with an implacable, soulless evil.
Cecht shuddered and stepped back, but Great-aunt Fuamnach stood her ground.
‘Is the Star holding it?’ whispered Cecht.
‘We will hope so.’ Great-aunt Fuamnach regarded the Fisher Prince grimly. ‘But we dare not lose any time in caging it. I hope that fool Mugain has the sense to bring the Tiarnan,’ she said again. ‘He�
��s the only one who can deal with this.’
Cecht said, carefully, ‘Can we do anything for Laigne?’
‘She is dead,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach. And then, because she was a merciful soul at heart, murmured, ‘Poor thing,’ but because she was also Great-aunt Fuamnach, spared a thought for Cerball’s pocket, which was going to be sorely stretched by yet another death.
They could hear people coming along the corridor now, and it was suddenly immensely comforting to hear voices and footsteps and doors slamming.
The door was flung open, and Cerball, with the Mugain and Bodb Decht at his side, stood on the threshhold. Behind them was Maelduin, slender and silent.
There was a moment when the newcomers stood horrified, frozen into uncertainty, each of them recognising, as Cecht and Great-aunt Fuamnach had done, that this was the spawn of the terrible Fisher King, the son of Coelacanth himself.
And then Maelduin moved forward, and the others fell back silently. Night had crept into the bedchamber without anyone realising, and as Maelduin moved across the room, he moved through dark, creeping shadows that lay thickly across the floor, and stole out towards him as he moved. But he paid them no heed; he simply moved silently forward, across the shadow-splashed floor, and as he approached the bed, the Amaranths saw that everywhere he trod was a faint sprinkling of cool, silver light. His eyes, brilliant blue-green pools of colour, shone as he eyed the thing on the bed, and a whisper of fear ruffled the surface of the silent room.
The creature was watching Maelduin’s approach; it was eyeing him from the corners of his eyes: sly, furtive, gleeful, as if it knew it could not be attacked physically.
Come and get me, Tiarnan Prince …
Light poured outwards from Maelduin’s slender form now, and he stood motionless and alone, eyeing the terrible thing that squatted in the drying blood and the pools of foul-smelling fluids.
The others did not know it, but his courage almost broke, for he saw, as they had seen, that this was indeed the Fisher King’s creature, the child of Coelacanth, forced upon the poor Amaranth lady who lay dead. The sidh had driven Coelacanth out of Tiarna, but only the Elven King himself and Maelduin, the Crown Prince, knew how close-run the battle had been, and how nearly Coelacanth had overpowered the sidh’s Armies.
And Coelacanth had vowed to one day return …
He summoned up every ounce of resolve, and reached far down into his mind, plumbing memory’s depths, down and down, until he felt his mind close about the living silver veins and the cords and the glittering pure strands that would harness and yoke the Cadence.
For a moment, the fear threatened to quench his strength; he thought: I cannot do it! I have forfeited the elven garb and donned the cloak of the Humanish. I no longer have the power!
But he beat the fear down and began the searching, the reaching out, the reaching down that would enable him to control the Cadence.
The Cadence was like the crystal pools of Tiarna, where the cool sea-magic of the nimfeach was stored. He would see it like that and he would force it to submit to him. A great library, an endless storehouse of spells and enchantments, each one catalogued and referenced and indexed … All I have to do is grasp the Cadence and bend and force it to my will. He half closed his eyes, his mind a single, vivid stream of concentration.
It was within his grasp. Maelduin felt his mind strongly in control; he felt it spinning and darting through the immense magical library of the Cadence; the library that did not consist of vellum chronicles and shelves of manuscripts or cupboards filled with documents, but that was filled with every enchantment and every spell ever written or created or spun …
And then it was before him, opening up to his inner vision, the silver scrolls, the great tapestry of magic, the lore and the wisdom and the knowledge culled by every sorcerer who ever lived … Maelduin felt himself submerged in it, he felt it closing over his head, so that the beauty and the strength and the ancient wisdom was soaking into his skin, drenching his eyes, obscuring his sight …
And then it was there. The incantation that would not destroy the creature, but that would certainly cage it. The ancient pure Sea Ritual. The great far-reaching enchantment spun by the beings who had inhabited the seas and the oceans of the world; who had built Tiarna before the sidh, before even the nimfeach.
For the nimfeach were themselves usurpers and despoilers, just as the sidh, in their turn, were the same …
He saw that it had no formal name, that it had been known only as the Sea Ritual. But it was the long-ago incantation; it was the enchantment that Aillen mac Midha had used to drive out the nimfeach centuries ago. It had vanquished Coelacanth and it would vanquish Coelacanth’s son …
Maelduin stayed where he was, completely still, his face colourless, his hair silver gilt, only his eyes showing colour, two narrow slits of brilliance. To the watchers it seemed that a gentle radiance began to enfold him, and for a moment there was the faint outline of slender, iridescent bodies, silver and blue and green, shimmering with the cool sea-magic of the fabled City of Tiarna …
Maelduin was no longer aware of the dark bedchamber. He was immersed in the great marvellous Language of Enchantment. It was all about him, so that he could see the words, the symbols, the silhouettes of the incantation forming; the Cadence was unrolling its wisdom at his feet like a great silken carpet: ice-blue, silver-green, the outlines tipped with silver, strengthened with gold and ivory. Great soaring curlicues of turquoise and pearl were woven into it, all of it within his understanding now, all of it waiting for him to call it into being, so that the dark, monstrous being, the Fisher Prince, could be imprisoned …
Yes! thought Maelduin, his mind soaring. Yes! This is the one that will cage the creature, and this is the one that will imprison it! With the knowledge, he glimpsed the first faint forming of the immense silver cage, the Sea Ritual created when the world was still cooling …
The creature on the bed reared up, its face hideously distorted with blind rage. Its muscles bunched and rippled as it braced itself to spring, but for the first time it hesitated, and the watching Amaranths saw the faint glimmer of the Star sketched by Great-aunt Fuamnach earlier, and knew that, frail as the protection was, it was quenching the creature’s powers a little.
Maelduin held out his arms, the palms turned upwards, and pronounced the beautiful, fearsome words of the Sea Ritual.
There was a howl of black bitter rage from the creature, and the repulsive membranous fin unfurled and distended. Its eyes spat the baleful light again, but Maelduin was encased in the soft radiance of his people, and in the pouring silver silhouettes of the Sea Ritual, and the red glare faltered and died.
The shimmering shapes moved — forming, solidifying, glistening on the air — until they were a silver cage, the bars strong and brilliant, the cage itself doorless, invincible …
There was the deep echoing reverberation of a great door being closed somewhere above their heads, and another howl of fury came from the creature. The Amaranths blinked and put up their hands to shield their senses from the sight and the sound, for the silver bars, strong and transient though they were, shone so brightly that it made your eyes ache to look at them for too long.
But the creature was caged. The Gristlen’s spawn, Coelacanth’s evil seed, the monstrous Fisher Prince who had killed Laigne in its entry into the world, was penned inside the silver cage of the ancient Sea Ritual.
And from here, it must be taken to the deepest darkest dungeon in the bowels of Ireland’s ancient haunted fortress.
The Grail Castle.
Chapter Twenty-five
Bodb Decht had found a tinder box and gone across to the lamps; now squares of glad yellow light flooded the room.
Maelduin was white and drained; there was no colour in him anywhere now, for even his eyes were the colour of the ocean with grey dull skies above it.
He said, in a rather faraway voice, ‘The creature will be safe for a time. But it must be taken — to the pla
ce we agreed — at once.’
‘You will do that?’ said Cerball.
‘I will do that,’ said Maelduin, and looked at Cerball in surprise, as if he might be saying: but that was the promise. That was what we agreed.
‘We shall make horses ready for you,’ said Cerball. ‘And provisions for the journey.’
‘Thank you.’ Maelduin had not moved, but as he stood framed in the window, the dying light of the day behind him, the candleglow touching his hair, he was suddenly and sharply remote from them. Cerball found himself remembering that this was the Crown Prince of Tiarna, the heir to the sidh kingdom, and that he came from the same world and perhaps even the same ancient roots as Coelacanth.
And he will have with him Coelacanth’s spawn …
I suppose we are right, thought Cerball, staring at Maelduin. I suppose it is all right to let these two creatures come together.
But he could see no other way; and when Maelduin reached for the silver cage, he was conscious of a flood of thankfulness.
The cage was lighter than Maelduin had expected; he lifted it cautiously at first, and then with assurance. He crossed the room, and then paused and, setting down the cage carefully, he moved back to the bed where Laigne lay, and murmured a string of words in a cool, unfamiliar tongue.
Cerball said, ‘What is …’ and Maelduin looked across the bed at him.
‘The words of an ancient sidh Halcyon,’ he said. ‘They will bring peace and balm to your lady on her journey to the Place Beneath the Ocean Roof.’
And without waiting, he slipped out into the vast corridors of the Palace, the silver cage tightly in his grip.
It was then that the Mugain said, ‘Listen.’
‘What?’
‘I hear something …’
‘It’s only the others in the Looms Chamber,’ said Bodb Decht, uncertainly. ‘We’re directly above the Looms Chambers here, aren’t we.’ And then, suddenly unsure, ‘Or is it only that?’