Then she saw armed figures. Cill who were half as tall again as Shaami and much more warlike. Although their bodies had the same streamlined contours, these were heavily muscled. Their eyes were cold, a steely grey, and their heads were elongated front to back, with bulging brows and heavy jaws, curiously ugly in the faces of Cills, with large overlapping canines. Their armour was shelllike – like the carapace of a lobster – and lobster-like claws had replaced their right forearms and hands. The blades on the claws were curved and overlapping, perhaps nine inches long, and fearsomely sharp. They would sever a limb, or a neck, with a single snip.
Kate couldn’t help but imagine such warriors in combat, combining implacable ferocity with the Cill potential to become invisible.
Shaami’s voice seemed incongruously gentle in comparison. ‘It is not by accident that Ulla Quemar has survived where all other cities have fallen.’
‘You believe that, sooner or later, the Witch will find you?’
‘She has discovered every other city. One by one, she has destroyed them all. No matter how well we conceal it, she will discover Ulla Quemar.’
Kate was still staring at the warriors, alarmed by what Shaami had told her, when he sang open a new entrance. From out of the entrance two Cill appeared, each taking one of Kate’s hands and leading her in. Although they too were devoid of breasts, Kate wondered if they might be the equivalent of female – though she was no longer sure that the Cill had anything like the male and female sexuality of humans. They so closely resembled each other they could have been twins.
Shaami’s eyes did the courtesy blink of his eyes again before he left her.
‘Won’t you stay?’
‘Shaami cannot enter here.’
The handmaidens – if she interpreted them right – began to remove Kate’s dress.
‘What are you doing?’
Their eyes irised, as one, in what Kate now recognised as an apology. ‘All must be natural in the Momu’s presence.’
‘Then I’ll undress myself.’ Kate removed her dress and underwear and handed it to the maidens, who bowed. With exactly synchronous waves of their sinewy arms, carrying through to the slim, nail-less webbed fingers, they ushered Kate towards an inner wall where another door morphed open, and, tentatively, she stepped through.
Immediately her body was bathed in a warm mist of brine. The maidens, moving with a languid ease, washed her body and anointed her with a scented oil. A more powerful, echoing voice addressed her:
‘Come! The Momu would see you!’
Kate stepped further into a large, softly illuminated chamber, flushing with embarrassment at her own nakedness. The chamber appeared to be a natural cavern within the much larger cave that housed the city. There were clusters of stalagmites, sparkling with embedded crystals, and high overhead she saw that the corresponding stalactites sprouted from the roof. The light rose from a broad, deep pool of faintly luminescent water behind which, only vaguely outlined within the shadows, stood a tree. The tree astonished Kate, who had seen no other within the plants and flowers that decorated the city. As her eyes became accustomed to the half-light, she realised that it was enormous, with boughs and branches that ramified all over the roof of the cave. She sensed even more extensive roots – roots that spread, perhaps, more widely throughout all of Ulla Quemar. And the leaves were not what one would expect of a tree. They were pink – and distinctly fleshy. She knew of no tree that could grow within a cavern in the absence of sunlight. Immediately in front of the tree, within the throne of its roots, a figure was reclining, a woman as naked as any other Cill, but considerably taller. Her face was a foot higher than Kate’s even though she was half-reclining and Kate was standing erect.
A movement in the misty air caused Kate to spin around. The chamber was scented with a floral sweetness, and its surfaces, which were as complex as the reef she had seen earlier, were pierced with water-filled hollows so that sea creatures, like crabs, sea urchins and starfish, could make their homes within them.
‘Come closer, child. Cross through the waters of the birthing pool. Only in the mind of Shaami has the Momu witnessed the life-giving gift in your brow. Come – let me see you in the flesh.’
The birthing pool! Kate hesitated, shrinking into herself.
‘Please – do not be afraid.’
The voice, deep and musical, was soothing to her mind, yet behind the gentleness Kate sensed great determination and, very likely, power.
Kate waded into the cool, still water and then swam across, blinking as she emerged before the Momu. She sat where the Momu indicated with a wave of her hand, within the intimate tangle of roots.
‘Are you comfortable?’
‘Yes.’ Indeed she was perfectly comfortable. The temperature of the humid air was exactly right for her naked body.
‘I know you will have many questions.’
Kate’s eyes lifted to gaze into a face many times the size of an adult human face, and much longer again from brow to chin; a slender and perfectly regal face with the longest ears that Kate had ever witnessed. The skin of the Momu had that strangely ethereal look, like all of the Cill, but there was some additional greenish-bronze hue. The lobes of her ears were greatly elongated and widened to take spools, like those that wrapped cotton, but these were artworks in ivory, a full six inches in diameter, dangling down on either side of her cheeks. With a slow blink, the enormous eyes sprang open, and with jaw-dropping shock Kate saw that the irises, performing that beautiful slow movement of welcome, were a silvery mother-of-pearl.
‘Come – sit close beside me.’
Kate hesitated before moving closer to the Momu, who was surrounded by platters of berries, nuts, tiny confections of sushi-like raw fish, a salad of fruits on a bed of three different-coloured seaweeds – and more – such a variety of tidbits she couldn’t even begin to identify them.
‘Would you care to taste?’
Although it had only been an hour or so since her evening breakfast, Kate couldn’t help but stare at the extraordinary feast that had been laid out before her. She understood now why that breakfast had been so light. Shaami knew that there would be a more substantial feast to follow. Her fingers shaking with nervousness, Kate picked up a tiny morsel of what looked like caviar on a biscuit. The caviar was probably exactly that – Kate had never actually tasted caviar in her life – and the biscuit tasted of roasted nuts.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s delicious.’
‘Ah – I see now that you are more radiant in the flesh than even I had imagined. I weep a hundred thousand tears of gratitude for your courage and kindness in saving the life of my child.’
‘Shaami is your child?’
‘My last-born – and most precious.’
‘All the Cill, they’re all your children, aren’t they?’
‘Of course.’
The long, webbed fingers of the Momu extended, with a languid grace, to stroke Kate’s cheek. Though the hive mother, she too was devoid of breasts. It was a reminder, if Kate needed any such reminder, that the Cill were not human. A crystal of power, pellucid but tinted a greenish blue, hung on a gold filigree chain around the Momu’s neck. Flickering sparks pulsated and metamorphosed in its depths.
‘Well now – you may ask me your questions.’
Kate nodded. ‘If it’s not impolite, can I ask how old you are?’
‘In your terms, child, I am very old indeed.’
‘Do you mean, centuries old?’
‘A good deal older still.’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘And throughout all that time have you been obliged to stay here – in this chamber?’
‘Oh, I can leave the birthing chamber as I please. But at my age I prefer to travel through water.’
‘You can swim out there, into the ocean?’
The Momu’s pupils performed a series of rapid oscillations, accompanied by a musical sound that might have been laughter. ‘Surely, the ocean is my world.’
; Kate clapped her hands together with delight. ‘There are lots of questions I want to ask you. But I don’t want to be selfish. I expect that you have some questions for me?’
‘Indeed I do. I have altogether too many such questions – and I can hardly restrain my own impatience. I would know everything. Who, and what, are you? Where have you come from? I would know everything of how you came to be the bearer of the great power you carry in your brow.’
Kate felt surprisingly comfortable in the presence of the Momu. And she was only too glad to be able to talk about all that had happened to her in this bewildering world. Once she began she thought she would never end talking to the Momu, who sat and listened to every word, largely in silence, the strange webbed hand about her slender shoulders, and the extraordinary eyes all the while appraising Kate. When she had finished telling her story the Momu took Kate’s hands between her own and kissed them with great tenderness. ‘So young and fair in all that you have witnessed, and suffered, and still admirable in your faith and trust. Greeneyes – you are a True Believer.’
Tears rose into Kate’s eyes, tears of release and uncertainty at one and the same time. ‘But what does it all mean? Why was I chosen? Was it just fate … the fact that four of us became friends? That we just happened to come together in Clonmel that day?’
‘You must not talk of fate thus, as if it were random, or unimportant. Fate is a very great power – and mystery is its very essence.’
Kate dropped her head and sighed. ‘I don’t even pretend to understand. Alan has become obsessed with this thing called the Fáil. Is this another word for fate?’
‘Hush! I would advise you not to speak openly of this. Yet there is a quality inborn to all True Believers, some for good, and some for evil.’
‘But what does that mean?’
‘Ah – such questions! Perhaps a quality that comes into its own in that most mysterious of domains, the between-world we know as Dromenon. And yet, without understanding of the mysteries, or what power resides within you, have you not resurrected a being of magic? Surely there is a miraculous potency in you.’
‘A being of magic – you mean, Driftwood?’
‘Even asleep, you willed it into being. And it became so.’
‘But how did I do that? How could I give life to a fossil?’
‘A very great power, indeed, have you. The gift of life, of rebirth.’
Kate looked up into the enormous, gentle face, astonished at what the Momu was telling her.
‘This gift, will you show me how I’m supposed to use it?’
The crystal dangling from the Momu’s neck took fire. The explosion of light, alive with a multi-hued matrix, filled the chamber. It was as if with an effort of will that the voice of the Momu stayed gentle. ‘Greeneyes – child! Your very naivety leads you to flaunt such a temptation before the Momu.’
‘But it’s a power I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s expected of me.’
Those huge eyes came to within inches of Kate’s own, as if to gaze into her mind. Then, the Momu burrowed, with one webbed hand, at the base of the tree, returning with her palm uppermost before Kate’s startled gaze and nostrils. Kate saw, and smelled, decay. The heart of the great tree was rotten.
‘Beloved Greeneyes, do you understand?’
‘I … I saw the same decay in some of the houses, the streets …’
The Momu’s pearly eyes performed that slow blink, and she put her arm around Kate’s shoulders again. ‘Nidhoggr, the serpent, who gnawed at the roots of the world, fertilised a seed of the Tree of Life. That seed grew into the One Tree in whose roots we converse, a chimera of magic and being. The One Tree is dying, and with it my beautiful Ulla Quemar. I, the first born of that chimera – who am almost as old as the One Tree itself – am dying with her. There will be no more Shaamis.’
‘Please stop! You’re frightening me.’
The Momu’s eyes were unblinking in their appraisal of Kate, now held so very close to her. ‘You talked of fate. And I told you that mystery was its essence. Yet was it not Fate that brought you here to me?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Will you not stay here? Will you not help me?’
‘What you’re thinking …’
‘You know my mind?’
The mind of the Momu, as Kate read it through her oraculum, was many-stranded, like a gargantuan spider’s web. Her thoughts, now invading Kate’s own, were a symphony of beautiful tones, yet behind the serenity Kate sensed despair. It was like drowning in an ocean of rotting silken threads.
Terror grew in Kate at what she was sensing in the mind of the Momu. ‘You know it would be wrong to keep me here.’
‘Oh, my darling Greeneyes! You must try to understand how perilous the situation has become. Even though she failed to locate and destroy my beautiful Ulla Quemar, the Great Witch has succeeded in isolating it, and in doing so, destroying the harmony it needed to survive. Yet you – so innocent and fair – you have the potential to change this. You have the power to refresh and renew.’
‘You want to make me a prisoner, just like the Witch. So you can use me, as she tried to use me.’
‘How cold are your words, now cruelly directed to me! Yet I would not use you for evil, like the Witch. On the contrary, I would cherish you, keep you safe in hope and love, with my purpose only to do good. I beg you. Grant me this respite? A year. A few years! A mote in the great cycle of time, yet together we might cure the One Tree and make Ulla Quemar whole again.’
Kate pitied the Momu even though she was now very much afraid of her.
She spoke, softly, ‘Granny Dew sent me to Driftwood, and he brought me to you. He didn’t bring me here so you could use me. He brought me to you so I could stop running. Can’t you see that you can’t go on hiding? There’s only one way to save you and your people. We have to beat her. We have to destroy the Witch.’
‘You imagine you can confront the epitome of evil and win? You will fail. Your purpose would be hopeless, even if you were to face her on her own. But you have seen for yourself that Olc is not alone. She has subverted the Eyrie People, though I know they have long baulked against it.’
Kate’s head was spinning with these revelations. ‘The Eyrie People?’
‘Those you call the Gargs.’
‘What are you saying? You know about those … those horrible beings?’
‘Once we were allies and not enemies, the Eyrie People, and the Cill.’
‘You were friends with the Gargs?’
But the Momu was no longer listening to Kate. Her voice was distant, lost in memories and despair. ‘Long ago, these were bountiful and prosperous lands with room and plenitude. We lived in a harmony of differences that respected all. We worshipped knowledge as much as we traded the fruits of our hunting and our skills. There were powerful covenants of fire and blessings between our peoples. This world was kind to all before the coming of the Witch …
‘But I must look beyond mere nostalgia for what was lost. Putting all that aside, more monstrous than all of the suffering she has inflicted on both the Cill and the Eyrie People, is the coming peril of her growing insanity. You, O, beloved Greeneyes – please be warned! Olc is plotting to recruit another to her cause. A demigod of immense power and malice. Can you not see that what you propose is worse than naive? It is madness to think you can confront and then destroy the Witch.’
Kate looked deep into the Momu’s sad and beautiful eyes, and beyond them, her tormented mind.
‘Listen to me, Momu. Please think about what I’m telling you. This power, in my brow – through it I can sense things that are sick – things that are capable of confusing your thinking so you see only darkness everywhere. The sickness that is weakening the One Tree is the same despair that is eating at your heart. Sure, it wouldn’t matter how long I stayed with you, I couldn’t cure your world any more than I could cure you. Not while the Witch remains a threat. I hear your warning about her – I know it will b
e horribly risky to take her on. But still I know that there will be no hope for you, or for lovely Ulla Quemar, unless we do. My friend, Alan, is coming. He promised he would and I know he’ll keep that promise. He too is an oraculum-bearer. But his oraculum is very different from mine. I won’t be alone when I confront the Witch.’
An Unlikely Capture
Alan stared down with dismay into a tumble of razorsharp rocks and cascading water. Next to him Turkeya was pleading with Kataba, who was sitting on the waterlogged ground, his back against a lichen-encrusted cliff face. Kataba’s injured leg was stretched out stiffly in front of him.
‘My ankle is useless. I can’t go on. I’m sorry, Turkeya. Just leave me here with a little food.’ The burly Olhyiu laughed, gazing about himself into the mist. ‘There’ll be no shortage of water.’
‘You know we won’t be coming back.’
‘Who knows what will be.’
‘It’s out of the question.’
The Aides helped Kataba to his feet, then rigged crutches from thick creepers so he could take the weight off his bad ankle. The contents of his pack were shared out among the others, reducing his load. They moved on again, picking their way with care down the treacherous escarpment. By midday they were confronted by a fastrushing river channel, about sixty feet wide, that had cut through the skirts of the mountains, creating a waterfall above a drop of sixty feet or more.
‘Be sensible – it’s hopeless!’ Kataba stood, keeping a somewhat unsteady balance on one foot with his crutches planted on solid ground, contemplating the swell of water that ran as fast as a herd of leaping bucks between stepping stones slippery with moss. ‘You know I’m a liability to this mission.’
‘It would take half a day to go around this pass. You must try,’ the Kyra pressed him. ‘Xeenra will assist you.’
Alan caught the questioning glance of the grey-haired Shee, which was directed towards the Kyra. Kataba was at least as tall and three times as broad as the Shee. But Ainé was insistent. ‘We’ll fashion a chain, holding hands, so that any who falter will be supported by the others.’
The Tower of Bones Page 27