by E. E. Holmes
Lucida, meanwhile, had tackled Fiona’s mother to the ground and was lying on top of her, with one hand pressed over the old woman’s mouth to muffle her continuing screams.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Lucida shouted. “The whole castle will have heard her caterwauling.”
Finn clambered to his feet, wrapping his vest tenderly around Fiona’s raw and reddened face. She continued to sob as he threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “This way,” he ordered. “Now!”
I ran to Lucida, and the two of us yanked and tugged the old woman to her feet, and forced her to lumber along between us. We followed Finn back through into the antechamber just as the sounds of feet and shouts reached the main doors of the courtroom. We flew down the hallway toward the sub-level stairs, abandoning any pretense of hiding or keeping quiet. We descended three flights, before we heard the first of the footsteps echoing on the stairs above us.
“Keep moving!” Finn shouted.
My breath seared my lungs, but I kept pushing forward, dragging the old woman mercilessly along with me. Ahead of us, Fiona bounced and whimpered on Finn’s shoulder, still wrapped in his vest to protect her ravaged features.
Finally, we reached the sixth basement level, and the stairs disappeared from beneath our feet, to be replaced with an ancient, foul-smelling floor of mold and dust. Finn tore to his left where a narrow archway opened into a crumbling, dank tunnel.
“This way!” he cried.
We stumbled after him. The tunnel was narrow and low-ceilinged, and Lucida and I had to turn sideways so that we were running single file with Fiona’s mother between us. Finn produced a flashlight from somewhere, and its dim, bouncing light was the only relief on an impossibly dark path as it twisted downward. More than once, my shoulders knocked into the wall, and I felt stones come loose and clatter to the ground on either side of me. A second’s light from the flashlight beam revealed that it was not a stone I had knocked loose from the wall, but rather, a human skull.
“What the fuck?” I managed through my ragged, breathless gasps. “Was that what I think it was?”
“It’s a catacomb,” Lucida puffed from behind me. “Its walls are constructed almost entirely of bones. Don’t think about it, just run, for God’s sake.”
But I did think about it, and my resulting horror provided me with a surge of adrenaline that powered me forward even though my legs and my lungs and every muscle in my body were screaming at me that I couldn’t go any further. We plunged downward through the earth, tripping and stumbling and crying out with disgust as each new twist and turn brought another pile of bones within sight. Only one other time in my life had I been in such close proximity to human remains, in one of the mausoleums on the Fairhaven grounds. I’d been wholly unable to control my panic on that occasion, and so I did not try to control it now. I let it propel me forward, let my terror give me wings.
Footsteps and angry shouts echoed behind us, but it was impossible to tell how close or far behind us they might be. The passage took a sharp turn to the right, and we suddenly found ourselves confronted with a door. Finn placed both hands upon it and murmured a brief Casting before wrenching it open, and we all tumbled through it. He slammed it shut behind us, and pulled a massive oaken plank across it, sealing our pursuers on the other side.
I had only a moment to stare around me, but the chamber in which we found ourselves was truly awe-inspiring. A cave deep within the earth, lined with shelf upon shelf upon shelf of scrolls and books, maps and globes. And all of it built upon centuries’ worth of bones.
“This way, hurry!” Finn was calling to us before my eyes had even processed the complete insanity of our surroundings. Lucida and I pulled Fiona’s mother up from where she had collapsed upon the floor and dragged her forward across the room, weaving our way between tables and cases and ancient throne-like chairs all stacked with books. Another door, identical to the first, stood at the far side of the archive, and we all ran through it, allowing Finn to seal it as he had done with the entrance.
The tunnel continued on the other side of the archives, but it was blessedly free of any visible human remains. Instead, it plunged sharply downward in a set of stone steps. We took them as quickly as we dared, digging our hands into the jagged walls of the tunnel to steady ourselves and prevent us from tumbling to the bottom in a broken heap.
At long last, after what felt like an eternity, the tunnel began to lighten, and the tang of salty sea spray reached my nose.
“Slow down and take the rest of this easy,” Finn said. “Once we reach the entrance, the ledge is narrow, and it’s likely to be slippery from the spray.”
The tunnel opened onto one of the most magnificent sights I’d ever seen. We had emerged onto the very face of one of the great rocky cliffs that plunged down to the violent waters below. Sea spray lashed at our faces as we edged our way along the treacherous, narrow ledge carved into the rock. I did not dare look down, but kept my eyes fixed doggedly on the path just in front of my feet, placing each foot gingerly, testing the weight and the slickness of the rock before trusting each new step. Behind me, Fiona’s mother was babbling hysterically, but seemed too frightened that she might fall to put up any kind of struggle.
The ledge stepped down in a gradual descent to a narrow strip of sandy beach that had survived being swallowed by the ocean by virtue of a deep craggy inlet in the cliff face. When I felt the soft give of the sand beneath my feet, my legs completely collapsed out from under me, and I lay with my face pressed into the sand, struggling to get control over my breathing once again.
Whether out of pity, or because he, too, was too exhausted to keep going right away, Finn let us rest there in the sand for several minutes before he urged us back to our feet and onward. I turned and looked back up at the cliff face, but no one was pursuing us down the treacherous path. Whether they had not been able to penetrate through to the archives, or whether they had simply seen the danger of our escape route and decided not to pursue us, we never found out. Either way, it was a stroke of merciful luck for which I sent up a silent prayer of thanks.
The tiny beach wrapped around the base of the cliff for another quarter of a mile, and then ended in a steep and rocky set of steps that would lead us back up to the green grasses of the mainland. When we emerged above the edge of the cliff, I was astonished to see how far from the castle we had traveled. The five of us sank gratefully down into the camouflage of the tall grasses, and lay there silent for quite a long time.
It was Finn, again, who roused us from our exhaustion and urged us to move on. “We’ve got to go for help,” he told me quietly. “Fiona is really badly injured. She needs medical attention.”
Fiona lay where Finn had deposited her upon the ground. She was no longer whimpering, but her breathing was shallow and ragged. The majority of her head and face was still obscured inside Finn’s vest. I did not think I could bear to look at what the fire had done to her.
Finn reached out a hand, and I took it, struggling to my feet. I turned to Lucida, intending to offer her the same help, but she was not looking at me. She was staring out over the water, and her eyes were wide.
“Lucida, what are you—”
But a distant sound of helicopter blades whipping through the air answered my question before I could finish asking it. Out over the water, a legion of helicopters, flying in formation like birds, was cutting through the afternoon sky toward us. We watched in amazement as they grew closer, feeling like castaways on a deserted island whose signal fire had been seen by a passing ship.
The helicopters soared over our heads, and off in the direction of the príosún, all except for one, which broke free of its formation, and circled back to land in the grass about a hundred yards from where we stood waving our arms and screaming ourselves hoarse in the attempt to signal them.
Several figures descended from the helicopter, and dropped down into the grass, running bent double until they were clear of the helicopter blades. The f
irst to straighten up was the one to make my heart weak with happiness.
“Hannah!” I tried to cry out, but I had no voice left.
“Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness!” Hannah was sobbing, and she threw herself upon me in a hug so fierce that we both fell to the ground. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to… Are you all right, did I hurt you?”
Hannah tried to pull away from me, but I pulled her back against me again for one last squeeze. “No, I’m fine,” I told her. “I’m just exhausted and so damn happy to see you!”
The embrace suddenly became bitingly cold, as though someone had doused us both in an icy bucket of water from the sea behind us. But it was only Milo, babbling hysterically, and desperate to get in on the hugging. He was closely followed by Karen, whose words were likewise unintelligible through her tears.
“Okay, seriously can’t breathe now,” I gasped. And all three of them pulled themselves off me, leaving me to massage my ribs.
“What happened?” Hannah asked me. “We’ve been trying and trying to get through to you through the connection, but it was as though you had sealed it off.”
“I didn’t seal it off, I just couldn’t access it,” I explained. “They forced me back into my body, like the Travelers did to Irina, and something about the combination of Castings and the mental exhaustion from the Walking… I just couldn’t do it.”
But nobody was listening to my answer, for they had all suddenly realized who was there in the grass with me, and all of their expressions had turned wary. Several Caomhnóir, Elin, and Siobhán had all arrived now from the helicopter as well, all of them desperately trying to assess the situation in front of them.
“It’s okay, everyone,” I said to the group at large, and all eyes flicked toward me. “Everything’s okay here. Finn wasn’t part of the conspiracy, he was a victim. The Necromancers were using spirits to control the Caomhnóir who didn’t want to join them. And Lucida was the one who got us all out of our cells, and helped us to escape. We would all be dead or captured if it weren’t for her.”
Lucida was barely daring to raise her eyes from the ground to meet the dubious and confrontational stares that had now been turned upon her. She did not speak to confirm what I had said, but merely sat quietly, waiting for judgments to fall upon her. There were more pressing matters, however.
“Fiona needs help,” I told the Caomhnóir. “Do you have medical supplies on the helicopter? She’s been badly burned.”
The Caomhnóir leapt into action at once, approaching Fiona’s prone figure on the ground and beginning to take her vital signs. A few moments of assessment later, they were lifting her gingerly between them and rushing her back to the helicopter.
“What’s happening back at the príosún?” Hannah asked, turning all of our attention to the most pressing matter of all. “All we could gather from your message was that the Necromancers and the Caomhnóir had begun openly working together.”
“They’re preparing to make a stand, to claim the príosún for the Necromancers. They were planning to carry out the plan more quietly, and gradually, but we forced their hand,” I said with a smile. “They figured out that I was there as a Tracker, not a prisoner, and so they knew that we were onto them. That set the wheels in motion, and then there was no stopping it.”
“But what’s happening now?” Milo asked. “How did you get out?”
But looking at him in his ghostly form, and Hannah beside him, had given me an idea. “The Necromancers have used Blind Summoners to turn all of the Caomhnóir into mindless foot soldiers,” I told them. I ignored all of their gasps, and plunged on. “One of the chambers inside the castle is full of the torches containing all the spirits’ essences. We were able to free Finn, but the rest of the Caomhnóir are still being controlled.”
“How did you free him?” Hannah asked, her face pale with shock.
“I couldn’t,” I admitted. “It was Lucida. She was able to Call the spirit out of Finn’s body and then used the Casting to reunite it with its essence again.”
Again, everyone turned and stared at Lucida. Again, Lucida could only seem to stare at her own folded hands in her lap.
“Are you saying,” Hannah whispered, “that the only way to rescue all these Caomhnóir is by Calling the spirits out of them?”
“Yes,” I told her. “The Necromancers are only prepared to take the fortress with a full army under their control. But if all of the subjugated Caomhnóir were suddenly to come to their senses and turn on them…”
“Then their entire plot is foiled,” Karen said quietly. “They can be taken down from within.”
“Exactly,” I told her. I took both of Hannah’s hands in mine. “What do you think?” I asked her. “Do you think you can try it? I know it’s a huge thing to ask of you, but it might be the key to everything.”
I watched as resolve trumped the fear in Hannah’s eyes. “I’ll try,” she said resolutely. “All I can do is try.” She turned and looked at the distant shape of the castle. “Let’s go, then,” she said. “There’s not a moment to lose.”
Everyone started to turn and hurry back to the helicopter. Only Lucida remained sitting in the grass.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked her.
“Wouldn’t that be a bit like crashing a party?” she muttered.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I told her truthfully. “But I do know that you’ve had a hand in this already, and everyone needs to know it. And there may yet be something you can do to help stop all of this. If that still seems like something that you want to be a part of, then come with me.” And I reached a hand out toward her.
Lucida stared at my hand for a moment as though she were half scared of it, and then reached out and took it.
We all crammed into the back of the helicopter, and it took off at once, buffeted back-and-forth by the strong ocean wind before it zoomed off in the direction of the príosún. We could see the place in front of the castle where all the other helicopters had landed, and touched down among them. Scores of Caomhnóir were scurrying around, consulting maps and making plans. Finn ran off to join them at once. Ahead, I could see a knot of Durupinen in their Council robes. Celeste was among them.
“Come on,” I called to the others, plunging through the chaos toward the príosún.
I looked up at the castle just as I arrived by Celeste’s side, and felt a thrill of fear and knowledge shoot through me like an electric current. The castle appeared exactly as I had seen it in my vision. If I had held the drawing up before me, it would be identical in every detail, from the placement of the flags, to the very figures that were gathering now upon the ramparts and battlements. The only element of the vision that was missing, was the spirits all hanging in the air above them.
And I suddenly understood why.
“This is it,” I whispered. “This is the moment. We have to do it now.”
Without uttering a word to Celeste, without telling anybody what we were planning to do, I reached back behind me and dragged Hannah forward by the hand. “Do you recognize this?” I asked her.
But she was already staring in awe at the sight before her, and I knew that she was sensing the same experience of déjà vu.
“All that’s missing is the ghosts,” she whispered.
“Only until you Call them out,” I told her.
She looked at me, and her expression was full of wonder. “I always thought… I thought the spirits were part of the rebellion. I thought they were part of the attack.”
I shook my head and smiled. “They’re part of the rescue,” I told her, and my face broke into a smile. “The vision wasn’t of their victory. It was of how to defeat them.”
Hannah returned my smile, and then turned to face the príosún. She closed her eyes, and began to concentrate.
An unnatural hush and stillness spread through the grounds. The shift in spirit energy was such that everyone knew instinctively that something was happening, and that
Hannah was the source of it. All eyes turned to find her, and everyone seemed to hold their collective breath in anticipation of whatever it was that was building in the air around them.
Meanwhile, above on the battlements of the castle, the figures who had previously been milling about and organizing themselves had stopped. Some of the figures had gone completely motionless, while others circled around them in confusion.
“It’s working,” I whispered to Hannah. “Something is happening, keep at it.”
The minutes stretched on, Hannah’s concentration remained unbroken, but she was beginning to tremble. I looked at Milo and read the worry on his face. It had never taken her this long to Call spirits before. They had always responded so quickly, found her Call so irresistible. Why wasn’t it working? What was I missing?”
Calling spirits who roamed free was one thing. Calling spirits out from living bodies was another. Perhaps it was too much for a single Caller to handle, however powerful she might be.
But we didn’t have a single Caller. We had two.
I turned back over my shoulder, and scanned the crowd desperately for the face I needed to find. She was there, huddled beside a helicopter, still looking unsure if the people around her were going to ignore her, or arrest her. I ran to her and pulled her by the hand.
“Jess? What are you doing? Where are you—”
“Don’t you understand? It’s not just her. It’s too much for one Caller,” I panted as I pulled her forward through the crowd. “It’s got to be both of you.”
“Both of us what? What are you on about?” Lucida cried.
I pulled her to a stop right beside Hannah and pointed up at the príosún. “This is your chance, Lucida. This is your chance to help her now. You can’t go back, but you can go forward. Help her. Help her do this.”