by Sarah Rayne
The white substance solidified almost immediately, and the Fer Caille, chuckling throatily and evilly, cast it across the surface of the Swamps, and flung out a hand, pointing.
‘See, my friends! We can with ease form a bridge across the puny defences of these charlatans! Across the bridge and slay the weak-kneed creatures who would rule Ireland!’
‘Kill them all!’ cried the Almhuinians, rushing forward, the Black HeartStealers and the Arca Dubhs in their wake. ‘Kill the paltry magicians!’
‘How dare they!’ cried Cerball, his face scarlet with rage. ‘How dare they call us magicians!’
But there was no time to think; the Almhuinians and the traitorous Black HeartStealers poured forward across the white, pulsating bridge, formed from the Fer Caille’s necromancy. As they did so, the Fer Caille himself, together with Iarbonel, hurled more of the thick smothering whiteness straight on to the Fire Columns. There was a furious hissing sound, and spirals of evil-smelling grey smoke rose.
‘As for the Web of Mab you have striven to create,’ cried the Fer Caille, ‘that is easily dealt with!’ As he spoke, three of the Black HeartStealers to his right flung sizzling knives and red-glinting spears at the web, slicing it to shreds instantly.
‘The Porphyry Palace is within our reach!’ cried Iarbonel. ‘Fall on them! Slay them if you must!’
The Almhuinians were already across the defences, and falling on Calatin and his group of friends, recognising that these were the strongest physically, stabbing them with their knives and spears. The air became tainted with the stench of spilled blood, and through the thick acrid smoke that had doused the Fire Columns, Cerball and the Mugain could both see that several of the Amaranths had already fallen. Cerball looked round wildly; Great-aunt Fuamnach was standing her ground, the famous hazel wand brandishing in the air. Light spat forth, and one of the Almhuinians fell, wounded in the shoulder. The hall was a seething cauldron of fire and whirling smoke and darting, hissing knives and swords. Clouds of thick, mucus-like vapour poured down from the ceiling, opening to rain down stringy clots of blood straight on to the Amaranths. Several of the Almhuinians were still struggling in the belt of Swampland, and several more lay shrivelled and dead, burned by the Fire Columns earlier.
Cerball thought: we can beat them if we can call up other spells! But to do that we must be able to concentrate.
Raising his voice above the shouting and the screams and the hissing spitting daggers, he cried, ‘Get back! All of you! Into the west wing!’ And turning, pulled wide the great studded door.
At once a howl of triumph went up from the Black HeartStealers and the Arca Dubhs. The Almhuinians surged forward towards the retreating sorcerers, screeching their glee.
‘Cowards! Defeatists! Craven creatures!’ They bounded across the great blood-spattered, smoke-filled hall, unsheathing their swords, aiming longbows and crossbows, beginning to swing fearsome broadswords and cutlasses.
Cerball, pushing his people frantically to safety through the door, glanced back at them. Calatin and a couple of his friends were covering their retreat, inching backwards to the studded door, facing the on-coming Almhuinians, their own swords striking out. Calatin snatched a spear of light from the air, and hurled it into the midst of the dark Armies, where it splintered and sent dazzling shards of light flying. The Almhuinians hesitated, and Calatin and his friends flung several more. The Fer Caille deflected them this time, and Cerball knew that, although Calatin had bought them a few precious minutes to escape, there was no more time now. They must barricade themselves in the west wing; they must combine their strengths and call up something so awesome and so overpowering that it would sweep these adversaries away once and for all.
He began to push the last few people through, shouting to them to be quick, for they dared not let these creatures follow them. He saw Great-aunt Fuamnach and the twins station themselves in the doorway just inside, hidden from the Almhuinians’ sight, and saw the great purple and silver Seals of the Amaranthine House of Sorcery begin to form. He half pushed the last of his people through, and saw the Seals fly to the door at once, tiny tongues of flame shooting from them as they covered the lock and the frame and the hinges … He watched for a moment, and was satisfied. No crack, no sliver of egress or ingress showed. Not even the tiniest thread of enchantment could slip through from outside, and the Seals were invincible. The only person who could break the Amaranth Seal once it was properly in place was the person who had created it.
As they mounted the stairs, they heard from over their heads the immensely comforting sound of gates closing and bolts being driven home.
The Seals of the ancient Amaranthine House of Sorcery locking into place.
Cerball waited just long enough to draw the ordinary iron and steel bolts across the door, and to turn the key in the lock. He turned to regard the Amaranths, who were standing uncertainly at the foot of the stone stairway. At the head of the stairs was the ancient west wing unused these two centuries past, but as safe a refuge as any they would find anywhere.
In the dim light the sorcerers were pale, and several of them were wounded. Cerball quickly counted them. Twenty-seven, including himself. Then eight? ten? were lying dead outside. He spared a brief thought for them. But there were twenty-seven here. Twenty-seven. The mystical three times nine. Not as bad as it might have been. The number would help to strengthen any enchantments they might weave.
Bodb Decht was unharmed, as was Cecht and Great-aunt Fuamnach. Calatin had a knife-slash across one cheekbone, and the twins were wounded, but only slightly. The Mugains, dusty and dishevelled, were here. Several others. It could have been much worse.
But they were barricaded inside the west wing, and their numbers were severely depleted.
And outside the door were the Almhuinian Armies of the Beastwoman of the Dark Realm, and the traitor Fer Caille and his people.
Chapter Twenty-six
Maelduin stood in the shadowy courtyard and saw and felt the creeping darkness of the Almhuinian Armies.
Advancing on the Amaranths. Exactly as I guessed, he thought.
There was a moment when his resolve wavered; he looked about him and thought: perhaps I should stay here. Perhaps there is something I could do to help. And with the thought came a derisive, silvery voice, somewhere deep inside him.
Help the Humanish … ?
I suppose not, thought Maelduin. And it is not part of my mission to do so. But he found himself remembering how the Amaranths had been friendly and welcoming; how they had invited him in and given him a place at their table and been unfailingly hospitable. Even after Murmur’s death, the vow he had made to free them from the Gristlen’s creature had been courteously discussed, as if there might be another way, and then, when it was apparent that there was not, as courteously accepted. But there had been reluctance in their acceptance. They were concerned for me and I ought to help them.
He was uneasily aware that he was becoming bound to this Humanish world, and to this vast Amaranthine Palace — and I dare not! he thought. I dare not acquire any more Humanish emotions and Humanish thoughts. Already there are too many.
And the thicker the carapace, the harder it will be to return …
The harder to return. Yes. That was a better way to think. Of course he would return, of course he would re-enter Tiarna and restore his people. Already there was the Cadence, harnessed lightly to his mind. Even if the music was beyond his reach, somewhere in the vast storehouse of magical knowledge, there would be a spell, an enchantment, a bewitchment that would free the sidh and allow them to live again.
He slipped unseen through a tiny side door, ivy-covered and set deep into the thick walls of the Palace. Cerball had talked of a horse, provisions for the journey, but Cerball and all of them would be caught up with the dark adversaries that had slunk in. Maelduin thought he could find the stables for himself from here. He glanced down at the creature in the cage, and saw that it was somnolent, curled into a dark mass in one cor
ner. Maelduin hesitated. Could he simply kill it now? Could he plunge a knife into its black heart?
With the framing of the thought, the thing uncoiled at once, and a clawed hand came snaking through the bars, raking at Maelduin’s hand. Blood poured out, spattering the cage, and the creature grinned and leaned close to the bars. Blood touched its jowls, and it licked, savouring, grinning. Maelduin, his arm stinging with white-hot pain, stared down at the caged being.
His senses were swimming, and he put out a hand to the wall for support. So this was Humanish pain, this was wounding, bleeding, hurting. He mopped the blood as best he could, using the cambric shirt he had donned in Tiarna, seeing it become wet and stained.
‘I would put an arrow through your heart if I could,’ said Maelduin, very softly, and the sly flat eyes regarded him, red amusement within them.
You know me for a near-immortal, sidh Prince …
Maelduin said, ‘We shall see,’ and moved towards the stables. For the moment the creature was imprisoned; the cool, elvish spell of the Sea Ritual held it. For the moment, he was safe.
But it is growing stronger with every hour … It is feeding on the darkness from the Almhuinian armies, and it is gaining sustenance from the battle that must be imminent …
And if there should be bloodshed, it will feed from that, also …
The stables were directly ahead of him, and although he had never entered them, he knew that within them were the great strong beasts the Humanish used for travelling.
He entered cautiously, unused to such a place, and felt the scents of horse and leather and straw close about him, with unexpectedly comforting warmth. He placed the silver cage carefully on the ground, and stood eyeing the creatures in the stalls. Could he take one? Could he control one?
I have to try, he thought. For on foot I should be vulnerable and prey to anything that cared to attack me. I should be at the mercy of every prowling danger. I have to try to use one of these beasts as the Humanish use them.
He moved forward.
*
In the end it was easier than he thought. He had no knowledge of the methods of saddling and bridling, although at home in Tiarna he had sometimes harnessed and ridden the Uisce, the silken-skinned, floss-maned sea-horses that occasionally romped and danced on Tiarna’s shores. He had used the thin silken cords that were spun in the caves of Seiricia by strange, little-known beings who lived in a twilight world, but whose silk and spiderweb gauze and wafer-thin lace was sought by eager pilgrims.
The sidh had traded for the Seirician’s exquisite and costly spinnings; using them to embellish the Silver Cavern of Aillen mac Midha, or for the garments and robes that must needs be donned along with the Humanish spell.
And now, Maelduin, used only to the pale flosslike threads and the smooth silken skeins, must somehow handle thick leather straps for his mount, and cumbersome steel trappings.
He thought he managed it well. To begin with the horses shied from him, their eyes rolling back so that the whites showed. Maelduin murmured the Halcyon he had used earlier, and then thought: but perhaps it is the blood they scent. He glanced down at his torn arm, and saw that it was drying over, but that blood still soaked his shirt.
He rinsed his arm carefully, using a bucket of water left in the adjoining room. There were Humanish clothes here as well; shirts and breeches and leather jerkins. Maelduin took one of the shirts and donned it and slid into a pair of soft warm boots. There was a thick woollen cloak which could be slung about his shoulders.
In a room adjoining the stables (tack room, did they call it?), he found harnesses and saddles. The horses were quiet now, regarding him with interest, and he managed to lead the nearest one out, and fasten a saddle and bridle to it. The buckles and the straps gave him a little trouble — although it is only a question of plain sense, he thought — but in the end, he did it.
There were saddlebags with panniers, clearly intended for transporting food and provisions. Very good, he had no provisions that he could take, but he had his prisoner. He led out a second horse, and found it easier, this time, to fasten on the pannier. Then he fastened the cage firmly to the pannier, and pulled a square of blanket over it. If he must ride the dark sinister road to the Grail Castle, then he must. But I should infinitely prefer to do so without the Fisher Prince’s baleful stare on me, he thought.
*
It was generally believed in Ireland that the road to Grail Castle, the fearsome, myth-shrouded stronghold of legend, was almost impossible to find.
Tales were told about it the length and breadth of the land, for wasn’t there something altogether fine about a dark fortress that everyone had heard of, but that no one had ever seen? It was a well-known fact that no one who ever attempted to journey along the dark, eerie road to the Grail Castle ever returned. People went boldly off on quests and adventures, but none of them came back to tell the tale.
If you were really clever (or especially imaginative), you could weave a few extra strands of your own on to the existing tales. It was not telling an untruth to do that, it was only making the tale a little bit better. And although nobody ever came out and said so, making a tale — any tale — a little bit better was meat and drink to the Irish.
But the legends that clung to the Grail Castle needed little embellishment. There were the solemn and severe tales of the many prisoners who had been cast into its grim fastness, and who had sat out the dreary years of exile in its vast dark halls. Maelduin, who knew the stories as well as he knew the silver and green tunnels of Tiarna, knew that he was riding towards a place of great and ancient magic. The Grail Castle had been old when Ireland was young; it had been raised when Tara was still only barren rock, and it kept its secrets. Some people believed that it was Tara’s dark underside, just as the Black Realm was Ireland’s dark underside.
Maelduin’s father had visited it once, many centuries earlier; he had said little about it, other than that it had been a place of shadows and strange, lingering echoes, but the story of what happened to him there had never been told. Maelduin caught himself thinking that this was surely odd in itself, for the sidh loved to foregather in the Silver Cavern on feasts and at festivals, and tell stories, sometimes scooping up sparkling handfuls of music from the crystal pools and setting it to the tales there and then. There were many stories of many journeys in the land of the Humanish, but there was not a one of the Elven King’s sojourn in the Grail Castle.
I do not even know if I can find it, thought Maelduin. The ancient belief was that you must ride directly into the setting sun, but other sources said you rode away from it. Many tales said it could only be found in the depths of the night, when the ancient lost enchantments of Ireland stirred, and when prowling evils walked abroad.
Maelduin, riding warily along, keeping the Porphyry Palace behind him, delved far down into memory, and the words of his father were strongly in his mind.
‘The Grail Castle is the Humanish place of suffering. It is used for exiles and outcasts and failed spells … There are many strange things to be found there, and many strange Guardians on its road to challenge and trap the unwary …
‘And the road that leads Men to it is the darkest and the most desolate place in all Ireland …’
The darkest and the most desolate place in all Ireland …
A rather grim smile touched Maelduin’s lips, for he knew precisely where his father meant. The Ireland of the Humanish was a remarkable place; a place of fields and villages, and remote settlements where traces of almost extinct races still lived: a place where there were ancient forests, with blue and purple shadows stealing through the trees at twilight, and soft prowling enchantments … And soaring mountains, veined with tiny trickling streams, and studded here and there with the fortresses of Ireland’s warrior lords and chieftains … And marvellous awe-inspiring coastlines, where the ocean lashed against the rocks, and where there was nothing to be seen for miles other than glinting, rippling sea, and shining, endless sky …
Ireland’s dazzlingly beautiful western rim, where once the Twelve Tribes of Gaillimh had ruled, and where Maelduin had frequently darted and swooped joyously, skimming the surface of the water, sparkling and iridescent in the sun’s reflection on the sea.
And where there were lonely forbidding crags and cliffs that were said to be the haunt of strange, evil creatures and where, according to an ancient belief, there had once been a Gateway into the Dark Realm.
The loneliest place in all Ireland.
The Cliffs of Moher.
*
The day was dying, and the sun was sinking into the ocean on Ireland’s desolate, beautiful western coast, as Maelduin neared his journey’s end.
He had stopped to rest several times, unsure of how far or for how long the horses could travel. They had passed through several clusters of houses, through sparsely populated villages and along narrow forest paths, where the ancient trees fringed the road. Lovely! thought Maelduin, drinking in the sights and the scents and the sounds of this Humanish world. He thought that the vivid greens of the forest and the fields, and the deep rich blues of the small streams and lakes were no longer so garish. Ireland is mellower out here, he thought; far more beautiful than ever I realised. And then, in sudden fear, he thought: or is it that my vision is becoming more Humanish?
He pushed the thought from him at once, and rode on, noting the road, guiding the horses due west all the time.
When the noonday sun was high above, he stopped at a farmhouse, and asked if he might beg a crust of bread and perhaps a drink. The farmer’s wife brought him a meat-filled pasty, together with a pitcher of creamy, still-warm milk, and a dish of pears, sweet and wine-scented.
‘You are generous,’ said Maelduin, and at once heard the thought that formed in her mind: and could be even more generous to one such as yourself …
He considered her briefly, but he knew he dared not turn aside from his quest. And he had not forgotten the ill-fated Murmur, he had not forgotten the sudden cold desolation, the feeling of a life draining away. I should not like to experience that feeling again, he thought. I should not like to cause another death. And I must do nothing that would draw attention to me.