‘I want to help the Kyra, even if she doesn’t seem to want my help. But I’m just not going about it the right way.’
‘Be patient!’ The Ambassador put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
He suggested, on his return to the circle, that Mo and Turkeya, the son of Siam and Kehloke, sat to his left with Qwenqwo on his right. Milish, Siam and Kehloke, he placed immediately to the left of Turkeya and the right of Qwenqwo, so that they were near enough for him to talk to them in confidence, as the inner circle became the most intimate ring of several large concentric circles about the bonfire. Glancing through the mist and drifting smoke, his eyes picked out the young Kyra in close conversation with Bétaald, both standing apart from the shuffling arrangements of the various groups that made up the gathering council of war. He assumed she was telling the Shee counsellor about their earlier conversation. Alan was determined to try again, and this made Qwenqwo’s drinking all the more hazardous. It didn’t help that the Fir Bolg and Shee shared some lingering resentment that all too easily flared into open hostility.
As if sensitive to his gaze the Kyra looked his way, and Alan found himself confronted again with that resentful glare. He turned to Milish, felt her hand touch his shoulder, and immediately she was on her feet approaching Bétaald, speaking words of confidence into the ear of the spiritual guardian of the Shee. Bétaald was looking his way, as if deeply thoughtful. Alan was relieved to see that Bétaald was now moving towards him through the smoke and babble of the gathering. He got to his feet to face a remarkable woman who, though small among the Shee, was as tall as he was, and whose skin was magnificently black, her hair sleek as the jaguar she would become in the heat of conflict. Though Bétaald moved with the same stealth and grace as the other Shee she was a good deal older, with her long hair, braided over her left shoulder, threaded with white.
‘Mage Lord Duval!’ She nodded. ‘May I wish you a speedy recovery from your recent ordeal!’
Alan acknowledged her words of comfort. He was learning, however slowly, that meanings were sometimes hidden behind words. ‘I’m really glad to see you, Bétaald!’
A flash of something deep in her eyes. It was only momentary, but he had not been mistaken. He needed to tread carefully.
She spoke, softly, sympathetically. ‘I know what you are really asking of me, but I’m afraid that the young Kyra is opposed to any such intimacy.’
‘Did Milish explain?’
‘The ambassador did explain. You believe that you may be the repository of Kyral inheritance. You offer yourself as Seer in the exchange of the accumulated knowledge of ages, between mother-sister and daughter-sister.’
‘I don’t pretend to be sure. All I’m suggesting is that we consider it. Oh, heck – I don’t rightly know how to go about it. But only that it might be worth looking into – with the Kyra’s willingness of course.’
‘Mage Lord Duval! I wonder if you understand what such an exchange, of the most intimate thoughts and memories, would mean to a Shee?’
‘I guess it wouldn’t be easy to accept.’
‘It would be more difficult than you could possibly understand. It would be a violation of the most sacred precept.’
A swell of the now familiar humiliation rose in Alan. ‘Bétaald, you know that it isn’t the first time I’ve violated those beliefs.’
‘I do not forget that, in desperate circumstances, you saved the daughter-sister of the dying Valéra. Still the new Kyra would see what you suggest as anathema.’
‘That was the same word the former Kyra used – anathema. And yet she still asked me to help Valéra.’
Bétaald inclined her head.
Alan hesitated. ‘I guess I’ve been pretty clumsy about this. I don’t know the right, or sensitive, way to go about this. Maybe if I know more of what truly worries the Kyra?’
Bétaald snorted. ‘Is it possible you do not realise just how powerful you are? The intrusion of such a mind into another so very different!’
Alan considered what Bétaald was saying. ‘She sees me as alien – and male?’
‘Is that not exactly what you are?’
Alan realised he had allowed himself to be wound up by the conversation. He took a calming breath. Without his noticing it, Qwenqwo, together with Mo and Milish, had also climbed to their feet. Qwenqwo had clearly overheard Bétaald’s words, and was bristling with rage. A bright alcohol-stoked flush glowered in his mist-drenched cheeks. ‘Will these Shee witches never change their tune!’
‘Please – Qwenqwo!’
‘You would have me hold my tongue. But why should I when they brook no reserve on theirs? You offer to help the graceless young Kyra – and now you hear her reply in the words of the adviser? You are not to be trusted – you, whose courage brought us safe to this harbour!’
Clapping his hand on Qwenqwo’s shoulder, Alan spoke quietly, resignedly. ‘Please – no more arguments! Remember Kate! C’mon now – let’s sit down and talk about strategies for the coming journey to the Wastelands.’
Across the estuary several armed guards dragged a tall man with a steel hook for a left arm into a darkened chamber, where they threw him onto his knees on the marbled floor. Their prisoner was manacled with chains and his face was swollen and bruised. Resplendent in a long silk gown a small corpulent figure was standing with his back to the intruders, peering out of the open arrowslit window with a spyglass on a swivel stand. He spoke to the guards in a sibilant whisper:
‘There had better be good reason for disturbing my tranquillity.’
‘Sire, we found this harbour rat skulking in the stores, stealing food. He was no easy capture, as you will see. We would have disposed of him with pleasure but for your instructions about such vermin.’
The man by the window addressed their prisoner, without troubling himself to turn and look at him. ‘What is your name?’
‘Caleb Dour, Excellency.’
‘You lie. That is not your name. My nostrils tell me that you are one of them, the fish-gutters, who indulge in drunken celebration of their youthful Mage Lord on the beach opposite.’
The one-armed man raised his head brazenly erect, resisting the attempts of the guards to make him bow.
‘The huloima, Duval – one of four such strangers from some alien world!’ He spat out a mixture of phlegm and blood with the name. ‘A stranger I would like to help to his grave.’
The figure span round gracefully on a gilded heel, so the light reflected off his deeply scarred brow. He peered for several seconds with his coal-black eyes at the manacled prisoner. ‘Your real name is Snakoil Kawkaw, which, if I am not mistaken, means a thieving crow!’
‘A man cannot choose the name he is born with.’
‘Pah! What do I care for you or your name! Do you know who I am?’
‘You are Feltzvan, Excellency – adviser to the Prince, Ebrit.’
Feltzvan gazed thoughtfully at the creature. His voice remained soft, little above a sibilant purr. ‘And you may as well know that I have been looking for one such as you, for a purpose. Disappoint me in that purpose and I shall take some small sport in killing you slowly.’
‘I am your servant, Excellency.’
‘Why such hatred of the youthful Mage Lord?’
The prisoner scratched at his chin with the hook that was his left hand. ‘He cost me this.’
‘And the fish-gutters who venerate him?’
‘They cost me a good deal more.’ It was spoken with unmistakable venom.
‘And this is why, Snakoil Kawkaw, you would help my purpose, contrary to the interests of your own kind?’
‘I have my own needs.’
‘Needs?’
‘Do we not all have needs, Excellency?’
‘Do you dare to mock me, bear man?’
A smile played about the lips of the man in the silk robes, but it provoked alarm rather than comfort in the kneeling figure. A growl entered Kawkaw’s voice, low pitched and urgent. ‘I was my people’s natural leader.
I had the strength and the cunning. Yet they chose Siam the stupid over me. All that should have been mine became his. Including Kehloke – the woman that became his wife.’
‘It would be only natural, in such circumstances, for you to feel jealousy – to desire retribution.’
‘Excellency – I desire blood, as well as the recovery of my rightful power. Mine was the lineage of leader. I want it all.’
‘You would be leader of the fish-gutters?’ Feltzvan mocked him. ‘But if such was in my power, what would a harbour rat have to offer in return?’
‘Information, Excellency.’
‘Information?’
‘Information about the arrogant brat, Duval, and about the chief among the fish-gutters, Siam the stupid. Information also of about a female cur amongst them, she who is known as Mo. The girl is probably the strangest of all. Through such information, Excellency, you might best undermine their purpose.’
‘So tell me, then – what are they scheming?’ He strode up and down the rug-strewn floor, his long silk gown almost tripping his dainty feet.
‘I do not know, Excellency. Other than the fact that I am certain that your concerns are entirely justified.’
‘Don’t patronise me, you vile creature.’
‘Only test me, then!’
‘Here!’ Feltzvan waved the guards to drag Kawkaw closer, his chains rattling over the marbled floor. Then he had them haul the uncouth creature to his feet so he could peer through the glass at the scene on the beach. ‘I am interested in the girl. Search among them. Show her to me.’
Kawkaw peered at the scene, which was half obscured by smoke and fading light. ‘Here – this is the one, sitting by the side of Duval. She’s one of the four, all claiming to have come here from another world.’
Feltzvan, a nosegay applied to his face, had them drag the stinking wretch away. The adviser wiped the eyepiece with a silken handkerchief before peering for himself at the dark-haired girl. He whispered softly, in that high-pitched sibilant purr. ‘Four strangers, you say, from an alien world?’
‘Perverse it may sound, Excellency, but there is a great deal that is strange about them, the girl in particular. I should know. Through adversity, I brought her as a gift to the Mage of Dreams in Isscan. Yet, it would appear, she readily escaped his pleasures.’
‘And the gangling youth – the fish-gutter that seems forever by her side?’
‘An Olhyiu. Son of the excremental chief. His name is Turkeya. After the death of the shaman, Kemtuk Lapeep, this whiskerless pup took on the role of shaman.’
‘These primitives, so deeply embroiled in blasphemous superstitions!’
‘I would not underestimate the Olhyiu, Excellency. They are renowned for their seamanship.’
‘Seamanship, you say?’
‘The Temple Ship was their inheritance, though no more than a wreck before the coming of the huloimas reawakened it as you can see.’
‘Could it be that they are planning a seagoing journey? Is that what the fireside chat is all about?’
The prisoner rubbed once again at his chin with his hook. ‘I could discover this for you, Excellency. I could be your eyes and ears.’
‘I have eyes and ears enough already in that misbegotten rabble. If that were all you had to offer me, you would not leave this chamber with your own intact. I have a more practical use for you, bear-man. I want you to become my hidden weapon in any such journey they might be about to undertake.’
‘I will deliver Duval to you. If you will deliver those fish-gutters to me.’
A flickering light entered the dark eyes of Feltzvan, where it glinted like a single mote of starlight against a sky of darkness. ‘Take him away. Remove his rags and hose him down. Feed him. Dress him in something less odoursome. Yet confine him while I consider how best he might serve us.’
Feltzvan waited until the prisoner and guards had departed the chamber, then further until the sounds of their footsteps had receded from his hearing. It wouldn’t do for them to realise the nature of his true master. Outside the open window the sun had just set and he felt the sharp breezes of the coming night on his face. Around the setting sun the sky was imbued with indigo. The adviser to Prince Ebrit opened a door onto an inner chamber, only faintly illuminated by candles made of wax infused with human blood. He paused to kneel before an altar of black marble. From a concealed recess he lifted out a dagger with a triple infinity embossed into the handle in glowing silver, above a heavy, spirally twisted blade. His hands now trembling, he gazed down onto the blade, which was constructed of a curious matt-black metal, bringing the hilt, with its embossed sigil, to his lips, lightly kissing it, and then pressing its burning emblem against his brow.
‘My beloved Lord and Master, I may be in a position to sow retribution among the Shee-witches and fish-gutters! A harbour rat has come to my attention with intimate knowledge of the Mage Lord, Duval. His mind is so delightfully clouded with hatred he may prove useful to your purpose.’
Nightshade
Kate knew she was no longer alone. All the time she was running, she sensed her pursuer close behind her. Something big, much bigger than she was. She could hear the padding of its unhurried paws. The gully took her exhausted legs from under her, sucking her down into its marshy hollow where she massaged her hurting feet in its gloom, her eyes wide with fright, her heartbeat bursting out of her heaving ribs.
The voice, when it came in over the lip of the gully, was a deep growl. ‘Come out, little mouse, and let me eat you!’
Kate gasped, hunkering down into the cold wet dirt, her jerky fingers searching for the first of the grassy purses to find a tidbit, then forcing it between her chattering teeth and attempting to hold it there with her trembling tongue.
That same growl: ‘I have all the time in the world – but what time have you?’
She tried to find some saliva, but her throat wouldn’t work. She pushed muck in between her teeth to moisten her tongue, but it only made her gag.
A great wolf head nuzzled down over the lip of the hollow. A ruff of snow-white hair stood erect in an oval around a long face that ended in enormous fangs, the slaver of its hunger dripping onto her face. Grey eyes, shining like moons, peered down into the shadows where she skulked, nostrils sniffing to right and left, puzzled to find nothing to see, yet pausing over her trembling body, as if it could smell her presence.
‘A strange reward for such a delightful hunt! I know you’re still here, little mouse, in spite of the fact that I can’t see you. But all the while I hear this voice in my head – a voice older than the wildwoods, and instructing me to help you in the old speech. Cha-teh-teh-teh!’
With a start, Kate realised that she wasn’t hearing the wolf through her ordinary hearing, but through her brow. And the voice in the wolf’s head appeared to be that of Granny Dew – nobody other than Granny Dew had ever used the expression cha-teh-teh-teh.
Kate couldn’t suppress the jitter in her voice: ‘Who – or what – are you?’
‘Why, some know me as the wolf who hunts alone.’
Her eyes were frantically searching the gully, looking for a possible escape. ‘I … I’ve never heard of a wolf that talks.’
‘If you listened to my belly you’d hear the growl of hunger. I haven’t eaten in a week. Why should I heed this voice in my head rather than the hunger in my belly?’
Kate thought about trying to run … but every instinct told her it would be a mistake. The wolf would detect something – a sound, a scent – and those great jaws were only inches from her throat. The tidbit from the first purse had made her invisible, but it hadn’t fooled the wolf’s other senses. She tried to remember what Granny Dew had told her about the second purse.
A handful of life – the beginnings of things.
She didn’t think that the seeds of life would make a difference to her situation. The grey eyes narrowed, the lips retracting over those enormous fangs just inches from her.
What could she do?
She recalled her crystal, which Granny Dew had only recently implanted in her brow. She had no idea what that was meant to do. You must resist all impulse to draw on the crystal until you are far beyond the eyes and teeth of this accursed place. She didn’t know if the caution still applied. She was so hopeless with gadgets – and the thing in her brow reminded her of gadgets. She recalled how uncertain Alan had been with his ruby triangle – the Oraculum of the First Power.
Oh, lord – how do I use it?
It’s an oraculum – I’m attached to an oraculum. It’s become part of me – part of my brain – my body.
A rising panic consumed her. She’d have curled even further into a ball, if that had been possible. But the wolf was already contemplating eating her.
It was a waste of time trying to tell herself to calm down. There was no way she was going to calm down. But she had been familiar with the crystal when she had held it in her hand. With the exception of Mo, they were all given crystals, Alan, Mark and herself, and those crystals had enabled them to read the thoughts of others. She had grown used to her crystal – she had delighted in it. Now, as she spoke, she attempted to read the thoughts of the wolf. ‘Eat me, whatever, or whoever you are – Wolf-who-hunts-alone – and you are no longer hungry today. But you will be hungry again tomorrow. And what will the Witch think of that? Didn’t she command you to recapture me alive? What will she have to say if she discovers you have eaten me?’
‘Cunningly put – and cunning is an art I am inclined to admire. You are no mouse. Of that I am certain. So come up out of there. Let me see you. And quickly – the succubi are closer than you think, and their Garg friends are already skybound, with eyes sharp as eagles’.’
Slowly, her limbs stiff with exhaustion, Kate climbed out of the gully and stood, on tottering legs, before the wolf. He was enormous, much bigger than even she had imagined, lean as a greyhound, with shoulders higher than her own and his great long head a foot higher still. His entire coat was white, not the grey-brown she would have expected of a wolf and, now she thought about it, his cold grey eyes, aglitter with curiosity, were not the normal amber of wolves. Though he couldn’t see her he sniffed and shuffled in a circle around her, somehow – coming to size her up, she assumed. His desire to eat her was plain to see. And those jaws would surely close on flesh, however hidden from sight, if he bit. Prowling, now, in a sinewy circle around her, the wolf sniffed and slavered, yet all the while some restraint held him from attacking.
The Tower of Bones Page 12