The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  The warriors formed into ranks. A column of conch-trumpeters sounded out another salute. The army, as one, came to attention before the majesty of the Momu. Even as Kate’s eyes scanned the waterfront, searching for any means of transport for the coming journey, the crowds began to chant a farewell in that spine-tingling counterpoint, as if it were a melodious harmony under the control of a master conductor. When it was finished the Momu stood erect, the crystal around her neck pulsating brightly, her right hand gesturing an elegant acknowledgement of their deference and love for her. Then she inclined her head to speak softly to Kate as the bustle recommenced about them. ‘I thank the powers I lived to see this day.’

  Kate sensed the importance of what the Momu was intimating.

  ‘I hope our meeting was more blessing than confrontation?’

  Kate nodded. ‘I … I learnt something important from you. I feel more confident in what’s expected of me.’

  The Momu bowed her head. ‘My dearest Greeneyes, we both know the dangers you will face when you confront the Tower of Bones. You will need that confidence if you are to have any chance of succeeding.’

  At the mention of the Tower, Kate’s fears resurfaced, though she tried to hold them back. ‘I’m not used to confrontation – to fighting.’

  ‘Yet will you promise me that you will not allow your understandable fear of the Great Witch to deter you?’

  ‘No – I promise you that I won’t.’

  ‘It is your strength that by nature you are gentle. But gentleness alone will not prevail against the enemy you face. Even war, in all of its horror, is an inadequate term for the nature of the confrontation that is imminent.’

  Kate took a deep breath.

  The Momu reached out and held Kate’s shoulders. ‘Remember that you bear the Oraculum of the Second Power of the Holy Trídédana. A goddess empowers you. Be not afraid to invoke her help.’

  ‘I wish I could say that I’m not afraid. But I’ll still fight the Witch. I’ll fight her with all the power that I possess.’

  ‘Well said!’

  ‘But I don’t understand what’s happening here. Why is it so important – this meeting with the Gargs?’

  The Momu performed one of those rapid oscillations of her silver pupils, as if the change of subject evoked her own fears.

  ‘It is important that we meet with Zelnesakkk, King of the Eyrie People.’

  Kate hesitated for a moment. It seemed so odd to hear the Gargs referred to as people. ‘But they’re your enemies. Why would you risk leaving Ulla Quemar to talk with your enemies?’

  ‘None, not even the King, would break the covenant of a Grand Council. Even through war, and the horrors of all that has afflicted these wasted lands, there are places that yet hold the sacred promises of history. Meet we must. Wars are won by the considerations and preparations that are made in advance. The Gargs have allied themselves to the Great Witch for many thousands of years. Yet precious little have they received in return, other than craven survival. They can but resent her enslavement. And who better than they will know her defences.’

  ‘You think the Gargs will help us?’

  ‘I will appeal to our common legacy of suffering as well as to their pride – and, it must be said, to their brave hearts in battle.’

  The Momu was interrupted by a loud splashing coming from the water behind them. The crowds cheered. Kate turned around to see something enormous, a gigantic greenish-yellow cylinder, rising out of the surf. She glanced towards Shaami, who was watching her, eyes agape, from outside the immediate protection of a ring of warriors.

  Kate cried out in astonishment: ‘A sunstealer!’

  She looked down in realisation at her clothes, guessing that they were water resistant and heat conserving, like a finely woven wet suit. She was to be ferried to meet the King of the Gargs inside a giant plant-animal.

  ‘It is natural,’ said the Momu, ‘for a land-born to fear the mother ocean. Even for my ancient heart it will be a testing experience to journey far from my beloved Ulla Quemar. Yet be assured that the globe of the sunstealer is resilient and the ocean its element. You will be protected within by our stoutest warriors.’

  The Momu allowed herself to be lifted aloft by four of the warriors and then carried into the sweeping tide. Kate was still dumbstruck with shock as the warriors waded out until the surf was up to their waists, then laid the Momu down with a perfect coordination into the gentle tide.

  ‘Come, now!’

  Kate’s eyes widened as the arrays of feather-like gills became upstanding on the head of the Momu, and her long streamlined shape slid into the ocean, leaving scarcely a ripple on the surface.

  The City of the Ancients

  As far as Alan could see the tunnel was entirely natural, lined with stone and earth. Leggy spiders with speckled bodies hesitated, as if considering whether the intruders represented food or danger, often holding their ground up to the last minute, as if they were the rightful owners here and intent on denying them passage, before scuttling into the many deep cracks and crevices. A hoary dust coated everything and their nostrils were filled with the smell of decay.

  They were walking down a steep slope. After half an hour of continuous descent he was convinced that they must be back to the level of the forest floor, or more likely the roots of the mountain.

  They emerged into a vast chamber in which their feet left impressions in what seemed to be the undisturbed dust of ages. Exploring the chamber in the rubicund light of his oraculum, Alan could see no limits to its distant extents, though its walls and high ceiling were lumpy and distorted, with gigantic knobs and protrusions breaking up the space into a semblance of streets and squares, yet too organic in shape and too enormous in size to be ancestral to any population of Tír today.

  Iyezzz was gazing about himself, gibbering with excitement, his eyes reflecting the light like torches.

  From the floor immense needle-shaped stalagmites formed a crescent, like some triumphal arcade they were obliged to pass through. Alan sensed power or energy about the guardian stones, and so did Ainé. When Iyezzz reached out, as if to touch one of them, the Kyra leaped forward and restrained the Garg’s wrist. Her green-glowing sword blade was suddenly pressed up tight against Iyezzz’s throat.

  ‘Easy!’ Alan put his hand to restrain her. But Qwenqwo had also stepped forward and his dagger was also pressed against the Garg’s ribs.

  ‘Hey – I don’t think he plans to betray us.’

  ‘Betray? Nooo!’

  There was such a jumble of thoughts invading the Garg’s mind that Alan struggled to pick up the thread of it. ‘He’s excited about something. But I don’t sense betrayal. More like reverence – wonder!’

  ‘We cannot trust this creature!’

  ‘I think there’s something odd about the needles.’ Alan hesitated, considering what he was still sensing in the mind of the Garg. ‘I’m going to test one of them through the oraculum.’

  His probing easily penetrated the layers of encrusted dirt and limestone, but then he received a shock.

  ‘It isn’t rock.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The core is too smooth to be stone. The texture is all wrong.’

  As Alan probed deeper it didn’t feel right for stone at all. Its texture was strangely familiar …

  ‘Wow!’ he breathed. ‘I think it’s ivory – or bone.’

  ‘What does this mean?’ the Kyra demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. But I suspect that Iyezzz is venerating some kind of deity.’ Alan gazed at the Garg’s face for several moments, probing his mind through the oraculum. ‘Maybe we should turn him loose. See what happens when he touches it.’

  ‘The Mage Lord has lost his senses.’

  But the Kyra’s blade withdrew from the Garg’s throat and she released her hold on his wrist. With equal reluctance, Qwenqwo put away his dagger.

  Iyezzz was still gibbering with excitement, his eyes switching from the Kyra to Alan, not daring in
itially to move.

  ‘Go ahead!’

  Everybody took a step backwards, allowing space for the Garg to approach a needle that towered more than twice his height. As the clawed wing-hand came to grasp the centre of the structure Alan thought Iyezzz was humming. But then he realised that the sound came from the structure itself, to be echoed by the walls of the chamber, growing progressively louder until it ended with three pure tones, as if coming from the pipes of a cathedral organ. A feeble greenish light began to glow throughout the giant chamber.

  ‘Wow!’

  The Garg scraped away some of the engrained dirt and encrustation, revealing the original surface of the needle. It glowed a bright actinic green. Iyezzz used both his wing talons with the delicacy of a surgeon’s scalpels to expose a foot or so of the smooth green surface. They no longer had need of Alan’s oraculum to illuminate the chamber. With growing amazement the company looked about themselves, observing the pulsating ripples of light that ran away from the exposed needle, deep within the substance of the rocky walls.

  ‘Surely the rock is alive with magic,’ breathed Qwenqwo.

  Alan shook his head. He probed deeper into the chamber, inspecting its surfaces and structures through the oraculum. That same greenish matrix, of the consistency of ivory, extended everywhere. It felt like a membrane – like living tissue.

  Alan spun on his heel and gazed about himself into the dimly lit cavern. ‘I’m getting the same feeling as when I entered the bowels of the Temple Ship.’

  The sense of numinous power was everywhere.

  ‘Iyezzz! What do you know about this place?’

  ‘I know very little. Other than it has always been thus, as you see and sense it. The City of the Ancients.’

  ‘But who were these Ancients?’

  ‘There are legends that claim it was here that the first peoples were born. Breathed into life through the will of the gods of rock and air and oceans.’

  Alan shook his head, wandering around, casting his oraculum far and wide. Was the chamber really alive? A living system, in some alien way? Rather like the Temple Ship appeared to be alive – appeared to be sentient?

  It was a shocking thought.

  Inside the Temple Ship he had found organic-like protrusions running around the inner walls of an enormous tunnel, as if he were looking at the cartilaginous rings of a gigantic breathing tube, a trachea leading down into living lungs. Then he had discovered what he had interpreted as the organic heart of the Temple Ship, a hidden chamber at the very core, with walls of a liquid golden material that was as shiny and heavy as metal. He had touched the golden heart, he had pressed his bleeding hands against those walls, and sensed … sensed what? Empathy? He had hardly understood what he was sensing. He really didn’t understand it any better now. Granny Dew had warned him of his own failings when it came to understanding this strange world of Tír. She had instructed him to trust his heart, his instincts, to suspend his natural human logic. There were things in this world that went beyond rational explanation. And that, for sure, was how it had felt when he had touched the golden heart of the Temple Ship. The exalting sense of oneness with another heart, another spirit – a living, sentient being – that was aware of you, that was one with your purpose, that was sensitive to what you felt in your own heart and spirit.

  Alan wondered if that was what Iyezzz was feeling right now, if it was why the Garg was so overwhelmed by the chamber, his throat visibly vibrating, emitting a kind of hymnal rhythmic cadence.

  The Garg fell to his knees. ‘Behold, Duvalhhh – the wisdom-that-was!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Arrrhhh – humanshhh! You demand explanations where none exist. The City of the Ancients is said to contain the bones of the Old Ones, travellers, if the legends are to be believed, who explored neither land nor the deeps of the oceans, but the very arch of the heavens.’

  Turkeya, who was sitting inches deep in dust with his back to one of the soaring needles, stiffened with fright as he woke from sleep. He felt his arm yanked hard, only to discover it was Mo who was trying to attract his attention.

  ‘You have to come with me,’ she whispered.

  Alan had been worried that there might be danger ahead, so he, Qwenqwo, Ainé and the main body of Shee had explored further, led by the Garg, and leaving Mo and Turkeya in the protection of Xeenra and half a dozen Shee.

  ‘Look after one another,’ he had cautioned them, with a departing wave. ‘We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

  Now Turkeya climbed reluctantly to his feet, turning his startled eyes on Mo, who was tugging impatiently at his sleeve. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Not so loud. I’m hearing voices inside my head – voices that seem to come from all around me.’

  ‘You’re hearing voices?’

  ‘Turkeya, haven’t you sensed it? This is a magical place. It makes you anticipate the possibility of amazing things.’

  Turkeya didn’t feel anything of the sort. The chamber, with its green-glowing walls, oppressed his spirit. This whole journey through swamps and caves had exhausted rather than enchanted him. Here the air felt unclean in his lungs, tainted with mildew.

  In fact, with the departure of the two oraculum-bearers, the glow had fallen to a faint glimmering of green. Xeenra had erected an additional soft light nearby, the dull moonlike glow of a wyre-stone, placed close to the ground. In this pallid light Turkeya’s eyes had to strain even to make out the tiny figurine Mo wore on a cord around her neck, a piece of bog oak crafted by nature into a figure with three heads, which she had tugged from concealment below the neckline of her jerkin and was now twirling between thumb and forefinger.

  He whispered: ‘Tell me about the voices.’

  ‘I sense that they’re really here in the chamber, among us. But there’s one voice that rises above the others.’

  ‘There is?’

  Turkeya shook his head. Mo had infected him with her spooky talk. And now Turkeya’s eyes peered in the direction of the nearby Shee, who stood guard amid the shadows, camouflaged by her cloak among the arcade of needle-shaped stones. He resisted being pulled another inch away from that comfort and security.

  ‘Don’t you sense it? Can’t you feel their presence all around us? There’s something really weird going on.’

  ‘Weird?’ Turkeya’s eyes were growing larger and larger in the dark.

  ‘I think they want us to do some exploring,’ Mo murmured, her lips so close to his left ear he felt them brush against the fur.

  ‘They?’

  ‘The voices!’ Her own voice had a jittery quality, as if she were frightening herself through putting her thoughts into words – and her words certainly frightened him. ‘I think I’m getting a message. They want us to look for something.’

  Turkeya glanced about at the now vague shapes of lowering shadows and strange shapes of stone. ‘I’m not sure it would be safe to become separated from the others.’

  ‘Look at the Shee! Look closely – look at their faces, their eyes.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Just do it! Get closer to Xeenra and take a peep.’

  Mo – this new Mo – could be very demanding when she set her mind to it. Turkeya moved closer to the greyhaired warrior who was deputising for Ainé. She didn’t seem to notice him. Her eyes, even this close to the soft light, appeared to be staring into darkness, unblinking.

  ‘Now do you see?’

  ‘She’s entranced?’

  ‘They’re all the same – all of the Shee!’

  ‘The Powers preserve us!’

  A constellation of stars materialised in the air before them. They moved with a fluid motion, forming a stream of light above their heads, then moving slowly away, as if illuminating a path through the warren of needles and the myriad other shapes that littered the floor of the giant cavern.

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t think we’re in any danger.’

  Turkeya stared overhead at the stream of stars, w
ishing he had Mo’s confidence.

  ‘Turkeya – we have to follow where they lead us! I sense that time is short and our mission is important.’

  Turkeya whispered a prayer under his breath while allowing this strangest of girls to lead him away through the dark. ‘Mo – these lights. How can you trust these terrifying stars to be friendly?’

  She tugged him on, resolutely. ‘Because I think I know who they are.’

  He stopped her dead. ‘You do?’

  ‘They call themselves True Believers.’

  ‘True Believers?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? Alan told us about his experience at the time the young Shee, Valéra, was dying.’

  ‘I remember no Shee called Valéra.’

  ‘We never met her. It was after Alan left the Temple Ship at the rapids on the Snowmelt River. There was a struggle with a Preceptor. She took the poisoned wound intended for Alan. She was pregnant with her daughter-sister.’

  A Shee – pregnant! Turkeya felt his eyes widen. But Mo hauled him on again, following the twinkling stream of stars that led them deeper into the chamber’s labyrinth.

  ‘Alan got lost for a while in the snowy wilderness. But then he had a vision. He saw lights just like these stars.’

  ‘I wish Alan was here, right now.’

  ‘One of the lights spoke to him. It warned him about the Fáil.’

  ‘Mercy! Say no more!’

  ‘I think we may be there.’

  ‘Where?’

  A single star stood before them, rapidly increasing in brilliance. They were standing on an infinite plane of the purest white.

  Turkeya was trembling with such fear he could hardly speak. ‘Where, in the name of blessed A-kol-i, is this place?’

  It is all places and all times and therefore nowhere and timeless. To some it does not exist while to others it is the only reason for existing.