Milish joined Alan on the floor before the rostrum. She hesitated, as if to gather her thoughts, before speaking.
‘I thank you, Holy Sisters, for this opportunity to address the High Council. There is much I might say to you, but time is pressing and I will keep it brief. I have had plenty of opportunity to observe this brave young man, witnessing how differently he sees our world. And I cannot help but conclude that, at least in part, we brought downfall upon ourselves. We enjoyed spiritual glory at Ossierel with little thought or care for the peoples of the Wastelands. In our arrogance we dismissed as barbarian much that should have become the focus of our concerns and attention, and in so doing we allowed the greater part of our world to be invaded, and increasingly dominated, by evil. Such were the fruits of our isolationism then. Even today we persist in fighting amongst ourselves and plotting and counterplotting for power in conflict with the Elector and the other city leaders. Meanwhile the forces of darkness encircle us without hindrance or opposition.’
A voice exclaimed, ‘How can we trust these warmongers when we see the example of Isscan, which sued for terms, and still stands, even prospers, despite being ruled by the Death Legion? Prudence dictates that we too should sue for peace – settle on whatever terms we can obtain with the Tyrant’s forces.’
‘Is this the view of many of you?’
A chorus of murmurs indicated that it carried a good deal of approval.
Alan found the source of the voice, a tall woman with bright blue eyes in a florid angry-looking face.
Sister Aon’s voice rang out: ‘How many would disagree with Sister Siebe?’
It seemed, from the rising chorus of voices, that much the same number were in opposition.
Siebe raised her voice in challenge. ‘What alternative do these warmongers suggest? Are we to risk our lives and the very fabric of this ancient sanctuary in assisting this so-called Mage Lord, who acknowledges that he knows nothing of our world?’
Alan shook his head. ‘While you bicker among yourselves the life of my friend Kate is in danger. I don’t want to offend you. I came here hoping you would help me. But if you refuse, I’ll find the portal by myself. But maybe you should think about what’s going to happen to you if I fail. What will become of this place, and the city of Carfon, when the Tyrant wins ultimate control over the Fáil? Then you’ll find out for yourselves what comes of bargaining with malice.’
His words brought consternation, with many voices raised in differing opinions. The voices were silenced by a second tap of the staff of power against the floor of the rostrum.
There was something deeply familiar about the old woman, Sister Hocht. Something more than the memory of her warning on his arrival into the harbour here aboard the Temple Ship.
‘Who are you?’ he asked her. ‘Why do you look so familiar to me?’
‘Are your wits so confused you cannot remember your guide from the landscape of dreams?’
Vividly, he recalled their spiritual journey back in time to the battle of Ossierel, made possible by Qwenqwo’s magic. There had been an old crone who had appeared as a soul spirit herself to guide them through the ravaged streets of the burning citadel. She had led them through an underground labyrinth to stand before the dying High Architect, crucified on the silver gates.
‘It was you?’
‘Yes!’ she cackled. ‘You remember me now! Was I not Spiritual Rector of Ossierel, and the closest confidante of the De Danaan herself!’
‘But then you know I’m telling the truth? You must have heard her words?’
‘I heard nothing. She spoke to you, as a mind opens to another, without need of ear or tongue.’
‘But how did you survive?’
‘There are powers, and secrets, even an oraculum-bearer is not privileged to know.’ She took his arm and leaned on him, while leading him out of the chamber. ‘Let you, my sisters, argue among yourselves. Let the Xhosa wait here for our return. For this discussion will not come to completion this night, or tomorrow, or this very year, if my instincts are anything to go by. In the meantime, young man, you and I have matters to discuss. It is a discussion I have looked forward to since first I witnessed your triumphant entry into the city – a discussion best conducted between us alone.’
The Prophecy
Alan had to slow his pace to walk beside the old woman, whose emaciated hand shook as it gripped her staff, and whose words came out slowly and shakily through her blue-black lips.
‘Tell me more,’ she spoke softly, ‘about your friend.’
Alan sensed that this frail, elderly woman, Sister Hocht, would understand things in a way that nobody else he knew might understand. He talked about Kate and what had happened to her on the journey here. He talked about Granny Dew, and how she had conferred crystals on Mark and Kate at the same time she had embedded the ruby triangle of the First Power in Alan’s brow. He also told her about Mark’s seduction by the succubus, which, as far as he could determine, indicated that the Witch and the Tyrant must have been in league with one another from the beginning. ‘Kate,’ he added, ‘was a target for the Gargs from the very beginning. First they tried to kill her. Then they took her to this Tower of Bones.’
‘Which means she is the prisoner of the Great Witch, Olc.’
‘So Qwenqwo Cuatzel believes – yes.’
‘The question then is – why Olc’s interest in Kate?’
‘I don’t know.’
They walked through cloisters of cold grey marble, illuminated by sconces and pitted with age. For a time there was no more than the resonance of their footsteps, hollow and soft, as if muffled by the millennia of secrets that lay cloaked within these walls. Alan pleaded with the old woman. ‘Sister Hocht – they’re tormenting Kate day and night in that horrible place. I sense her pain. And I can’t bear it.’
‘You are brave and good. Of course you care about your friend. And now I see what drives you to such a dangerous course of action. But brave intentions will not suffice. You must not be manipulated into making a fatal mistake.’
‘Can’t you help me? You must know where I can find the portal.’
‘Ach – you stumble in blind ignorance while appearing foolishly certain of what you imagine your need. Was it not I who was given the honour of moving the portal from doomed Ossierel to these hallowed cloisters? None better than I know how dangerous that portal is. Only the De Danaan had the strength and knowledge to confront it – and we have seen what became of her. Knowing this, will you not heed me now? The Fáil is not merely dangerous to contemplate, it is far more so to confront.’ She paused a moment to clutch at his arm with fingers so ancient they were little more than tendon-wrapped bones. ‘My brave young friend, it is dangerous beyond your powers to imagine.’
‘When I was coming here, I had a strange experience. It was at a very difficult and sad time. I was given advice by what I would guess was some kind of spiritual guide.’ Alan spoke the strange words that were engraved on his memory:
‘All wisdom is contained within the Fáil. Yet such wisdom is perilous beyond your understanding. You must approach your purpose elliptically, not directly.’
Hocht’s eyes blinked up at him, her neck arched from her stooping shoulders, her skull-like face impassioned but curious. ‘The message appears vague – it sounds more a warning than an instruction to confront the Fáil.’
‘The guide told me that the Fáil has become corrupted.’
Hocht fell silent, her face haggard with presentiment.
‘What’s really going on?’
‘This we do not know. Only that the De Danaan perceived forces that threatened all we hold dear.’
‘What happened to the High Architect’s oraculum – the Oraculum of the Moon?’
‘Fallen, alas, into the hands of evil.’
‘Does that mean that you, the Council-in-Exile, are no longer able to test the integrity of the Fáil?’
A murmur of despair passed Hocht’s lips. ‘Perhaps,’ she murmured, ‘
even the Fáil itself cannot last for ever. Perhaps even to hope so was the ultimate vanity. Yet belief in its power for salvation was a vanity to good purpose. Through such belief good was venerated over evil. All manner of beauty and harmony prospered under the protection and guidance of the Arinn’s creation in beloved Ossierel – alas, what grief that loss still harbours in my heart.’
Alan was silent for a moment, thinking about what she had said. ‘I’m grateful to you, Sister, for your concern and your advice. But there are things I have to ask.’
‘Ask, then.’
‘First – the Ambassador, Milish. I don’t want her to get into trouble for risking her life to save me.’
‘The Princess of Laása will suffer no punishment. Even if there were none amongst us who remember what we owe to the family of Xhosa – and in truth there are many – is she not a friend and counsellor to the Kyra of the Shee? Her enemies would do well to consider that.’
Alan nodded. Ainé would allow no harm to come to Milish.
‘You have another question?’
He hesitated. ‘I need to know as much as I can about the creature that’s holding Kate prisoner in that horrible place. This so-called Great Witch, Olc.’
‘Be warned again. Though it is said that you have led the forces that defeated a Legun in battle, Olc’s power is greater than any Legun. And her cunning, as necromancer, is more deadly. Though she may well be working in league with the Tyrant, nevertheless she resents his supremacy and craves to usurp him. In her Tower of Bones, which is set in a desolate plain known as the Bitter Marshes – a place of extraordinary conflict in times past – she seeks to reawaken a force that once resurrected would mean ruin and desolation for all.’
‘Why would she do this?’
‘In her lust for power she seeks to resurrect a soul spirit of truly immense power and evil. If ever she succeeds her Tower of Bones might rival Ghork Mega in power and darkness. More I cannot add since, thanks to the vigilance of her succubi and Gargs, none who has entered her domain has emerged to tell the tale.’
‘What are these succubi?’
‘The succubi are Olc’s own offspring, spawned from her corrupted spirit.’ Hocht hesitated. ‘Would you, in spite of all I have warned you, be so foolish as to challenge the Witch in that terrible fastness?’
Alan gazed away from the focus of her clouded eyes. Something was wrong. The oraculum in his brow was pulsating.
He said: ‘Ma’am – I sense danger.’
She crashed her staff against the flagstones, causing echoes to crack and reverberate through the cloisters.
‘Come then – quickly!’ She clutched at his arm, blinking away what might have been her own presentiments and fears. ‘Such talk has reminded me. There is something, a relic of your own world, I need to show you.’
The sense of danger was so tangible that Alan probed every alcove and crevice as Sister Hocht led him to a door of black oak that opened off the labyrinth of corridors. The door appeared to be locked, without a handle, not even so much as a keyhole. With a chant, strangely vibrant and reverential from her otherwise dry throat, the old woman performed a spiral with the head of her staff, then lifted her left hand in a simple gesture and the heavy door fell open.
‘Welcome, Duval, Mage Lord of Earth,’ she said, ‘to the Chamber of Enlightenment!’
Such was the brilliant glow of light that flowed out of the parted door that Alan couldn’t help but hurry through to explore the brightly lit chamber. Astonished at the beauty that confronted him, his instincts carried him to the dead centre of a floor that was a perfect circle perhaps a hundred feet wide, finding himself at the heart of an exquisite mosaic of multicoloured marble inset with semi-precious gemstones. The scenes in the mosaic appeared to represent life in all of its wonder, from intertwining forest trees and brilliantly plumaged birds to the richness of life in the oceans.
But Alan’s attention was distracted by the fact that his oraculum was still pulsing strongly with the presentiment of danger.
‘Where does the light come from?’ He stared about the domed walls and ceiling, carved of a fine ivory-coloured marble, and illuminated by a perfectly even glow of light that filled the chamber.
‘The walls and ceiling are but a single carved glowstone.’
‘Wow!’
‘Ach – such beauty as you behold is but a shell of vanity. The real illumination is the blessed light of knowledge.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Behold!’
With another spiral motion of her staff Sister Hocht caused the walls to change. Where there had been a seamless glowing shell Alan now saw a honeycomb of small repositories – pigeonholes. He looked closer and saw that each pigeonhole was annotated, in a script he couldn’t read, and filled with parchment scrolls.
‘What is it – some kind of a library?’
‘A scriptorium. A poor copy of the blessed scriptorium of Ossierel, where the greatest wisdom of our age was gathered. We saved what we could in the weeks before Ossierel was attacked, and brought it here.’
Alan gazed about him at hundreds of scrolls filling every shelf and niche. ‘There’s something among these scrolls that might help me?’
Hocht gazed about her, found the niche she was searching for, plucked a single scroll from the many and handed it to him.
A growing impatience caused Alan to snatch at the leather thong that bound it, attempting to tear it open in his hurry to see what was inside.
The old woman’s hand enfolded his wrist. It felt surprisingly strong, forcing him to patience. ‘Hsst! Now I too sense it.’
He stared at her, tense with the imminence of danger.
‘My young friend – should we not regard each other as friends!’ She turned from side to side, as if searching for the source of their common presentiment. ‘Quickly – quickly!’ With a sigh of concern she waved her staff at the walls, causing the honeycomb to meld back into its glowing blankness, then spun away from him as if to hurry him back out into the marble cloisters. Once outside she lifted her face and sniffed at the air. ‘Ach – already it comes! Such little time do I have!’
‘What is it? What do you know?’
Scurrying as fast as her tired old bones could carry her she led Alan into a new cloister, with a colonnade to his left that opened directly onto the moonlit estuary. With a wave of her staff she slammed shut all doors opening into the cloister before settling into a small niche, illuminated by torchlight, where she unwrapped the binding thong and then handed him the scroll, which unfurled to a single oblong of yellowed vellum on which he saw five faded lines inscribed with strokes, some perpendicular and some slanted …
‘It’s Ogham?’
‘What you see is only a fragment of a greater whole, though scripted in the poet’s own hand.’
Alan couldn’t help recalling, with grief, his grandfather, Padraig, who had known how to read the ancient writing. But it was Mark, and not Alan, who had gone to the trouble of learning Ogham from Padraig.
The oraculum flared.
His eyes lifted from the fragment of parchment to see a growing consternation in the eyes of the old woman. He followed her gaze backwards along the corridor to where a wraith of mist had appeared.
‘Sister Hocht – I can’t read it.’
‘Well then,’ her eyes turned from the corridor to confront his gaze, ‘I shall read it for you. It is but a fragment from the Prophecies of Diarmuid in the Book of Omens.’
His voice was hushed, as gentle as his anxiety would allow: ‘Read it to me – please?’
‘Hsst!’ She silenced him, looking back to where the mist spiralled and turned, as if searching, then grasped the hilt of her staff in both hands and closed her eyes tight in circles of concentric wrinkles. ‘It comes – it comes!’
The oraculum began to pulsate rapidly and powerfully.
‘What is it?’
‘A deathmaw.’
Alan froze, recalling the deathmaw that had threatened
the Temple Ship over the river in the Vale of Tazan. The oraculum burst into a lurid red flame in his brow. ‘Tell me what to do. How do I fight it?’
‘Alas, it is too late for that. To fight it will only delay it rather than defeat it. And that might expose you to its master’s attention. I must make use of what time yet remains. Ach! I have journeyed far. I have known Dromenon. Let me translate the prophecy in what little time is left to me.
‘A dragon is rising
Over the Rath of Bones
Blacker than night his wings
Trailing rainbows
Over the bog of slaughter.’
Alan shook his head. ‘What does it mean?’
She whispered urgently. ‘A fragment of a longer prophecy, the meaning of which is obscure. But my attention was drawn to its mention of the Rath of Bones. Could it be that same Tower in which your friend, Kate, is imprisoned?’
Alan felt the icy mist envelop them. He pressed her: ‘Is there no way I can stop this – use my powers to heal you?’
Her hand, shrunken as a claw, clasped his own.
‘Do not even think to do so. Then it would have you too. Save yourself. In doing so, you will aid what purpose I still serve.’
Alan turned the power of the oraculum inwards. His body was flooded with the power spreading throughout his bloodstream. He felt the hairs spring erect on his head. Yet still he returned the fierce clasp of the old woman’s hand, seeing blood appear from her nostrils and run, dripping, from the point of her chin. Her gown was smoking, not from the power of his oraculum but from a fouler flame that was consuming her. Her face was turned away from his, upwards, as if towards some visions she saw in the heavens. ‘My death I embrace willingly. My body is weak and easily conquered, but my spirit is strong. My spirit will join the De Danaan in her sacrifice.’
The Tower of Bones Page 5