by Sarah Rayne
Yes, the Prince was at the front of the cage, hands curled about the bars, the cold, colourless eyes fixed unblinkingly on Maelduin. Maelduin at once understood that the Prince wanted him to escape these creatures: it was possessed of tremendous power, but it was still too young to fend for itself. It needs me! he thought, and derived a surprised strength from the thought.
He fixed the Trolls with his slanting eyes and said, ‘What of the Gristlens? Have you the guarding of them, also?’ and for the first time saw the cobweb-strands of his frail enchantment shiver on the darkness. Still holding! And now I may learn something of Coelacanth, who escaped from the Pit!
‘It’s part of our task, guarding the Gristlens,’ said the Trolls, proudly.
‘They … do not escape?’
‘Oh no,’ said the Trolls, shaking their heads solemnly so that the blood-filled jowls quivered. ‘We never lets them escape.’
But Maelduin saw them steal uneasy glances at one another. He said carefully, ‘And if ever one did escape, there would be nowhere for it to run to? You would catch it at once?’
‘After it and fling it back,’ they agreed, nodding firmly.
‘Unless —’
‘Yes?’
‘Unless it might escape by daylight,’ said Lumpkin. ‘We can’t be responsible for what happens by daylight.’
‘He knows that — Chaos.’
‘It was all part of the bargain.’
‘We can’t be out in daylight, see. Anyone knows Trolls can’t be out in daylight.’
Maelduin felt the sudden unease stir their slow, coarse minds, and knew they had remembered the menace of daylight again. At any minute they would look up at the sky. He spoke swiftly, not giving them time to think. ‘Tell me of the Court of the Dark Lords?’ he said. ‘The pronouncing of the punishment for the banished ones.’
‘Well it’s …’ the Troll leader stopped and frowned. A look of fear crept over his face, and now Maelduin dared to glance up, and saw that across the eastern skies a thin finger of pale grey light was appearing; ephemeral and transient, and so faint that for a moment Maelduin thought he had imagined it.
The Troll said, in a voice thick and gravelly with fear, ‘Getting on for dawn, chaps.’ He pointed to the sky. ‘Time to be back into the cave.’
Maelduin summoned his last shreds of strength. Leaning forward, he said, ‘You must tell me of the punished necromancers who are flung to the Pit,’ and saw terror and indecision in their faces. The leader began to lumber to his feet, and in the slowly breaking dawn, Maelduin could see immense spiders’ webs, like the skeletons of bats or octopuses crawling across the Trolls’ faces. The nearest shuddered and put up a bristly paw, as if to brush off a huge, smothering hand, and the others moved to him.
‘Dawn,’ said Lumpkin, and turned the mean little eyes on Maelduin. ‘And us out in it if we aren’t careful! And that’s responsible!’ He pointed to Maelduin. ‘Get it now, chaps!’
‘Impale it afore it has chance to run!’
‘Afore the light gets to us! Make haste!’
Maelduin no longer thought about whether he could summon power. He no longer thought about being tired and cramped and almost drained. He felt the Fisher Prince pouring cold, piscine strength into his mind, and for a glorious, soaring moment, the Humanish mantle wavered and dimmed, and the sidh was in the ascendant, arrogant and imperious.
And I am the Crown Prince of Tiarna, and I will devour you as I have devoured countless others! There was a moment when he almost thought he could have soared above them, as once he had soared above the Humanish, swooping about their heads and then closing in on them and tearing out their coarse, sluggish souls.
Above their heads, the first rose and gold streaks of dawn flooded the eastern sky, veining it with the pure, pale colours of the new day. As the light fell across the rearing black pillars, the Trolls bellowed and fell back, throwing up their great paws to shield their eyes, and Maelduin thought exultantly: I have done it! Dawnlight!
He sprang to his feet, the cool sea-essence filling him up, reaching joyously for the shining pages of the Cadence, hurling pure shards of scalding light across the ground.
The Trolls were bellowing in agony, rolling over and over, clutching and tearing at their faces. As Maelduin stood watching, torn between exultation and horror, he saw that, as the light fell upon them, it burned them, so that their thick skin bubbled and boiled, forming hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, sizzling blisters. A dreadful stench of singed bristle and hide began to taint the plain.
The Trolls’ tallowy skin was melting and, as they clutched their faces, Maelduin saw that the thick flesh was running between their fingers like candle grease. They screamed and writhed, rolling over and over on the ground. Lumpkin was trying to crawl back into the cave, blinded by his own melting, runny skin, groping his way along the ground, dripping thick, oily flesh as he went. Maelduin shuddered and stepped back, and Lumpkin, sightless and deaf, dragged himself nearer to the cave by some still-alert instinct. Maelduin thought: he is smelling his way back to his lair! and was sickened and appalled.
The Trolls were almost dead. Two of them made a final huge effort, struggling to their feet and lumbering across the ground, their faces dissolving and melting and trickling over their bodies to lie in great, evil-smelling pools on the ground. They flailed wildly at the air, bellowing their torment, cursing and screeching for help.
And then the nearest of them, as if by the same instinct that had driven Lumpkin, turned suddenly and staggered straight at Maelduin, his head lowered as if to charge. Maelduin moved, but the Troll made a sudden sideways lunge, and toppled forward.
Maelduin was knocked from his feet at once. He felt himself rolling across the ground, away from the dying Trolls, spinning and sliding, unable to stop himself.
And then the ground was suddenly uneven and dryly hot, and he knew himself to be on the very brink of the Pit. There was a moment when he clawed at the ground, for he could not fall, he must not fall …
The ground, dry and baked, crumbled and fell away, and Maelduin tumbled helplessly into the Tanning Pit of the necromancers.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The Almhuinians were feeling extremely pleased with themselves. It said a good deal for the people of Almhuin when a proper fighting force, a strong, dark force could be sent out to give aid and lend strength to people as important as the Black Heart Stealers.
They had been pleased to hear that the Royal Amaranth House was to be overthrown. They all remembered that the Black HeartStealers had been the guests of the Lady a few months ago, and that there’d been a certain closeness between the Lady and the Fer Caille at the time. It had not lasted very long, because the Fer Caille, although a worthy enough bed-partner, it was thought, had not fully shared the Lady’s appetites for fresh warm blood, or not as fully as she would have liked.
But they were all hoping that he would succeed, and that the Amaranths would be killed and vanquished. It would be a grand thing altogether if the Royal Sorcery House could be in the hands of strong necromancers.
And it did your heart good to see your sons and nephews and grandsons — and the sons and nephews and grandsons of all your friends — so eager to fight against the Amaranths, and so aroused by the thought of killing and pain. Chaos’s people had said, rather contemptuously, that the blood was running thin; the Rodent strain was disappearing and the Almhuinians were becoming Humanish, but this was a complete untruth. The Almhuinians could kill and maim as viciously as ever, and they could certainly steal into an enemy’s Palace at dead of night, and slit his throat while he slept. Becoming Humanish indeed! said the Almhuinians crossly, and spread a few sly stories about Chaos’s own people by way of revenge.
The young ones would see a good bit of the Other Ireland during the mutiny, and a nasty pallid place they would find it. But it would broaden their outlook, and it would all help to spread the force of the Dark Lords. It was true that the Almhuinians did not want to spread Chaos’s
force at the moment, on account of him being on the other side, but you had to take a broader view at such times.
Sending off the young men had been an important event. You could not let your sons and grandsons present themselves to important people like the Black HeartStealers without due preparation. They would go fully armoured and properly prepared, and the village would turn out to send them off.
They had a bit of a procession by way of farewell, only very quietly because of the War, but a procession all the same. They had been sure to march past the Castle, because the Lady had been very interested in their venture. She had sent down a message commending her people for answering the Black HeartStealers’ Summons so promptly. The Almhuinians must do all they could in the way of spying and creeping into the Porphyry Palace by night, she had said. They might consider infiltrating the Palace while the Amaranths slept, and creeping into their bedchambers and slitting their throats. She would expect them to return victorious, and bathed in the warm blood of the accursed Amaranths, she said, a lick of relish in her voice. She had even sent down two spells which they could take with them, and which would help them to vanquish any sentry enchantments the Amaranths might have posted.
With all this going on, it had been several nights before they got properly around to dealing with the two prisoners taken in Diarmuit’s tavern. Presently they would be taken up to the Castle in the tilt cart, but they were safe enough for the moment. They were tightly tied up, although Black Aed and Diarmuit had been careful not to draw blood because the Lady couldn’t bear not to be the first one to draw blood from a prisoner. But they were bound securely; their food was drugged to stop them escaping, and they would not harm for keeping for a day or so. In fact it added to the enjoyment to keep them for a while; it gave everyone a good feeling, a feeling of power and sexual arousal, to think of the two of them lying down there in the dark cellar, knowing the death that awaited them.
Diarmuit visited them and took them a bite of food and pannikins of water: the Lady would not have liked her victims to become dried out, and the Almhuinians would not have liked the Lady’s wrath if such a thing had been allowed to happen. Diarmuit would remind them what was ahead for them each time he took their food and water down, and Black Aed’s wife would have judged the drugging to a nicety. Enough to drain their strength and prevent them from fighting or escaping, not enough to cloud their senses and make them unaware of what was ahead.
Diarmuit and Black Aed believed one of the prisoners, the female, to be an Amaranth sorceress of quite a high degree, which was extremely gratifying. They’d all enjoy seeing her humiliated. Black Aed’s wife was preparing the food very carefully indeed this time, because they were not going to risk any nasty Amaranthine spells being furtively spun. The very thought of pale, pure, Amaranth magic in Almhuin was enough to make most people feel ill. Properly drugged the creature must be, and her companion as well. They’d mistrusted the both of them the minute they’d entered the inn, and although they’d all spotted Rumour for what she was, most people had also been made very uneasy indeed by the strange symbol Andrew wore at his waist. Aed had said, and everyone had agreed, that the horrid thing should be removed and summarily burned at the first opportunity, but the really remarkable thing had been that, when they went tiptoeing into the shed later that night, the prisoners lying drugged and helpless, not a one of them had been able to bring himself to touch the symbol. Clearly it was a focus for power of some immense strength. The Almhuinians wanted nothing to do with it. They tiptoed out again, and told one another that, if the Lady wanted to destroy the nasty thing, she would have to do so herself.
The two would be taken in the traditional procession to the Castle, of course, but it would have to be a rather quiet procession. If they were to go marching up and down the mountainside carrying flaring torches, they would all be an easy target for the Harpies, and they would certainly be sitting ducks for the screeching vultures whom everyone knew, quite positively, to be in Chaos’s pay. The Almhuinians naturally had a few spies inside Chaos’s Castle, but spying was a two-way affair. Chaos would have his own people watching Almhuin, and whatever else you might say about his people, you had to admit that they were efficient.
And so, although they all talked wistfully of the grand days before the War when, not only would there be torches, but the singing of several Dark Chaunts to accompany a prisoner’s last journey, everyone would be sensible. The two prisoners would be taken quietly and unobtrusively to the Castle, under cover of a moonless night, using the small tilt cart. To be sure, it was a sad old day not to be having the usual ceremonies, but doubtless the prisoners would not know any difference. If you were going to your death, it would not matter to you whether you went to it quietly and inconspicuously, or whether you went with the full panoply of Almhuinian ceremony and the full complement of Chaunts echoing in your ears.
All the same, it was rather a pity …
*
Andrew had prayed for strength in the dark, low-ceilinged cellar, kneeling on the dusty, bare floorboards, reaching for the strength and the love and the deep inner consciousness of power that had never yet failed him. But he knew how perilous their situation was, and he knew that the only help would be from within themselves. There could be no flaming swords splitting the skies, or fiery-lined clouds descending to the earth to disgorge warriors with heavenly strengths.
Rumour, curled like a cat in the far corner, slept an uneasy, drugged slumber. They had both eaten hungrily of the food that the Almhuinians had brought, and although Andrew had felt only dizzy and drowsy, Rumour had been violently sick within a couple of hours, choking and retching miserably.
‘Poisoned,’ she said, gasping and blinded by the tears that streamed down her face.
‘No.’ It tore Andrew apart to see her like this, but he was so firmly chained that he could not get near to her. He said, ‘It is not their intention to kill us.’
‘You think not?’ Rumour sat back, exhausted and drained, and regarded him from eyes made huge by the dark smudges beneath them, her face white and pinched but the wry irony still discernible in her voice.
‘They will not dare to kill us, Rumour.’
Rumour stared at him, and then said, ‘Of course. They have to keep us for the Crimson Lady.’
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Well,’ said Rumour, leaning back against the cellar wall tiredly, ‘whatever they intend for us, I do not care for this place.’ She looked about her and managed to dredge up a grimace of disparagement.
The cellar was a small, dry place, boarded with planks of wood that had an ancient dry smell to them, and lined with great sour-smelling wineskins and barrels of ale. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling; a square hatch, just large enough for a man to climb through. When Diarmuit brought their supper, he had pulled the hatch back and let down a narrow, iron ladder. Andrew had watched carefully how this was done, thinking there might be some way to overpower the innkeeper, but Diarmuit did not come near enough. He simply placed the food at the foot of the ladder, and then pushed it across until it was within their reach, using a hooked pole.
The cellar seemed to be used as a storeroom of some kind. Near to the ceiling, beyond their reach, were shelves on which were stored huge wheels of cheese wrapped in muslin and waxed paper. Close by the cheeses were huge smoked hams and flitches of bacon.
Andrew regarded the smoked hams and the bacon and cheese, and then glanced involuntarily into the dusty corners of the cellar, thinking that surely there would be vermin in such a place, and thinking as well that to encounter rats in their present helpless state would have been unbearable.
But I do not think there are any rats down here, he thought, and at once Rumour said, ‘Of course there are not, Andrew. The rats are upstairs, waiting to pounce on us.’
Andrew said, softly, ‘Your sense of humour is still with you then, madame.’
‘The last thing I shall lose,’ said Rumour, but her voice was blurred and her eyes were sunken
and dull. She looked exhausted, and Andrew caught himself thinking that their captors might have administered stronger doses of the drug to Rumour with the idea of preventing her from calling up sorcerous forces to defeat them.
Rumour said, ‘I am not defeated, Andrew. It is only that the darkness in this place is so stifling … I have tried to call up the power …’ For the first time there was a break in her voice. ‘I have tried, so hard,’ she said, and there was such humility in her voice, such contrition, as if she was asking for his forgiveness, or as if she had failed, that Andrew felt as if a giant hand had squeezed the breath from him.
He said, very gently: ‘Rumour, we will get out of here. I promise it with everything I ever held dear. On the body and soul of my own God, I promise it.’ He looked at her across the ill-lit cellar, trying to pour strength into her and trying to pour hope in as well. He knew the danger of despair; the monks had called it accidie, and had believed it to be the most grievous and the most dangerous of all sins. Once you gave way to despair, real black, lonely despair, you had given up hope of anything and everything. You had stopped trusting God. They must continue to hope and they must continue to believe that they would escape from Almhuin.
‘Do you feel your God may have forsaken you, Andrew?’ said Rumour softly, and at once he turned.
‘No!’ His eyes met hers, but in his mind a cold serpent of memory uncoiled, and he remembered the agonised bitterness of the dying Christ, who had cried aloud to a God whom he thought had forsaken him. But I will not think like that! said Andrew in silent anger. I will not accuse God of forsaking me! I will believe and I will trust!
‘But perhaps he seems …’ Rumour paused, searching for words that would not be offensive. ‘He seems very far away,’ she said, the hint of a question in her voice.
‘He is not a god like your gods,’ said Andrew.