Violet-blue dusk fell gently as Sam and Rosie drove back to Cloudcroft. The festival lingered on. It was a fine evening, with crowds of people outside the Green Man and all over the road. They plainly considered the day not done and the highway a traffic-free party zone. Sam had to crawl to avoid running anyone over. At the far corner of the green, there was activity. People were drifting in that direction, entirely blocking their way.
“Great,” said Sam, drumming the steering wheel. “I thought they’d be done by now. Haven’t you got bleeding homes to go to, people?”
“Must be the Beast Parade. It’s usually long over by now.” Rosie wound down her window and called to a man standing near the car, “What’s happening?”
“Dunno, love,” he said happily. He reminded her a bit of Alastair. “There’s some idiot dressed up as a deer. These folk customs, all about fertility, aren’t they?” He winked.
Rosie grinned back. “Er, yeah. Thanks.”
The crowd began to stream up through the village, following the attraction. Rosie heard the thump of a ritual drum. Sam crawled after the procession in the car for a few yards, then swung into a side road and parked. “Be quicker to walk,” he said.
The evening air felt warm. There was a pink flush to the sky, but the light was fading towards slate grey. She saw the spark of lanterns and torches concentrated at the front of the column.
As the lane rose in front, the head of the procession came into view. She glimpsed costumed dancers in green, perhaps thirty or so. At their head was a figure with massive antlers on his head. The antlers shook and dipped, making their wearer seem a mad, shamanic figure. Behind the core ran a looser group of a hundred or so folk, also mostly in green—and Aetherial, from their light, tireless pace.
The mass of human revelers ran to keep up. Ahead, others lined the road to watch. She heard the bright notes of a horn.
“They’re hunting him,” said Sam. He and Rosie began to run. It reminded her of something she couldn’t bring to mind. A hidden intent, an age-old ritual.
The Beast Parade was different every year, but the dancers normally went around the village in a circle to complete the enactment on the green. There was often some daft theatrical climax. Instead, the procession took the left fork that led past Oakholme and ultimately out of the village altogether. Human followers were starting to grow tired and drop out by then.
Rosie glanced into the windows of Oakholme as they passed. The only light was in Matthew’s room. Still the procession continued. There was nothing up here, no reason for them to come so far. She glanced at Sam but he only shrugged, puzzled.
“Are they drunk?” she asked. There was, however, nothing frivolous about the participants. They ran with serious intent. When they gave voice to hunting cries, the sound was raw, dirty, savage. The hunting horn sounded again.
“They’re heading up to Stonegate,” said Sam.
Twilight soaked the landscape in eerie gloom. The hunt took on the feel of a tribal rite. The stag sacrifice whirled and staggered in a trance. The huntsmen pursued in wild excitement like hounds after scent, their real selves subsumed. Sapphire was one of them—possessed, on another plane of consciousness, where all was narrowed down to their goal.
Even the human followers were caught up without understanding. Their shouts of encouragement were savage. Heaven knew, the villagers had no reason to love Lawrence either. The same dark blood hunger infected everyone.
The stag ran now as if exhausted. He staggered under the weight of the hide on his shoulders and the crown of antlers. He pushed himself into a brief burst of energy, running and feinting, then stumbling again. The hunting horn sounded, urging him on. The quarry must not fall too soon. Sapphire’s heart was in her mouth as it seemed he would collapse halfway up the drive; but the antlered head rose again and he struggled on.
There on the step before the double doors of Stonegate Manor; that’s where it would end.
Lucas was in the rooftop conservatory, resting his forehead against the glass. The incident in the attic had left him profoundly disturbed. He’d crept up once and found no one there; now he daren’t return, in fear of what he might or might not find. Had he fallen in love with a hallucination? If so, he’d lost his mind without even noticing. Was it some conjuration of Lawrence’s, designed to keep him at Stonegate? There was one way to find out; ask Lawrence what he knew of Iola the guardian, and watch his reaction. But then—if Iola was real—Lawrence would want to know how he’d found out, and that might place her in danger.
His confusion sank towards despair. He thought he’d discovered a wonderful living secret in this tomb. Then it proved to be dust, or some cruel trick. The landscape below was velvety green, but he was isolated from it. All day he’d been hearing snatches of music and loudspeaker announcements from down in the valley. He’d sneered, but now he longed to be part of it. He and Rosie, eating ice cream as they trailed behind their parents, children again.
As dusk fell, Lucas saw the procession coming up the drive. The sight shook him out of his torpor. Why the hell were a couple of hundred people suddenly flowing towards Stonegate? They must be drunk. It must be a joke, but Lawrence would be incandescent.
He could make out only a shadowy mass, carrying lights. A horde of villagers with flaming torches, come to oust the fiend from the castle; that was the image, but there was something darker and quieter in their intent. As they came level with the walls beneath him, he saw they were dressed up, masked. A figure cloaked in deerskin dodged this way and that, branched antlers swaying, in symbolic flight. The hunters mimed pursuit.
Lucas stared, confused. Human spectators must see this as enacted folklore, but it wasn’t. There was a sinister, hidden meaning. Whatever it was, it would be nothing entertaining.
“Lawrence!” he shouted, running through deserted rooms until he reached the gallery.
Lawrence was already on his way downstairs. He crossed the great hall, switching lights on as he went. Luc followed him, alarmed. As they entered the lobby, a terrible sound came through the door; a muted ululation like the baying of hounds. Through the windows, they saw the crowd milling on the half-moon drive in front of the portico. “What do they want?” said Luc.
Lawrence’s face was limestone. “Traitors,” he said thinly. “So it comes to this.”
Lucas saw the stag framed in the portico, turning to confront his pursuers, rearing to his full height as they held him at bay. He saw the red-coated huntsman raise a longbow and take aim. The arrow flew. The stag bowed his antlered head and fell, hitting the doors with a tremendous thud. Lucas jumped. The doors shuddered.
Lawrence’s hand turned the key and began to slide back the bolts.
“No, don’t!” Lucas cried.
“I must,” said Lawrence.
He opened both doors wide. Light spilled out. Lucas saw dozens of pairs of glowing eyes staring back, red like the eyes of wild dogs. Only the huntsman had a human face, with a simple black mask, and he had a huge curved knife in his hand.
As Lawrence opened the door, the huntsman’s huge butcher blade rose and fell. Blood spurted. The stag collapsed in a red lake. The scene froze for a heartbeat, a tableau. In the space while no one moved, Lucas recognized the scarlet huntsman as his uncle Comyn.
Lawrence stood expressionless, staring. Panting, wild-eyed and defiant, Comyn glared back. “Out,” he said. “You are out, Lawrence Wilder.”
“What the hell is this?” said Lawrence, his voice raw and shaky. “What the devil is the meaning of this charade?”
“You know the meaning.” The huntsman stood with the blood-soaked blade raised near his face. “The stag bears your crime and is slaughtered.”
Lucas half-screamed, “Oh my god, it’s Jon!”
He lurched forward, but Lawrence gripped him and shoved him back. For a few moments the world spun into nightmare and all he could see was Jon, the fallen quarry, dead in a pool of blood.
“You recruited my own son to act this out?” Lawr
ence whispered. “Jonathan?”
The air caught in Lucas’s throat, raw. Then Jon raised his head. There was blood all over him, but not issuing from his body. Fake. He’d had a bag of pig’s blood strapped to him. His face was barely visible under the stag’s head. He was panting, eyes unfocused. Drugged; how else could he have done this?
“I’m not your son,” he rasped. “You’re not my father.”
Sam and Rosie finally reached the head of the procession where the drive met the house. A chaotic mass of people roiled in the dusk. Impossible to make sense of the scene. There were some humans looking confused and asking each other what the hell was supposed to be happening. Others, drunk, were cheering. The hard core of costumed hunters clustered around the front doors.
“What the fuck do they think they’re doing?” Sam hissed, outraged.
“The door’s open,” said Rosie. They pushed their way around the edge until they got somewhere near the front. The throng at the door wore forest greens and had the masks of hounds. Rosie felt the world shift like quicksand. How come so many Aetherials had known about this—but not her, or Sam, or her family?
Suddenly she spotted her parents—but they were on the fringes, not costumed. Jessica was in a tie-dye skirt and caftan of sunburst yellows, Auberon in grey flannels and jacket, and they looked every bit as shocked as Rosie.
Finding gaps to peer through, she and Sam watched the scene on the doorstep. The stag was on his hands and knees, awash with crimson blood. Lawrence stood on the threshold, his face white and terrible, with Lucas at his shoulder. She recognized Comyn’s voice.
“The slaughter of the stag upon your doorstep marks you as a pariah, Lawrence. It states the disapproval of the community. The stag is your crime. The stag is you. We sacrifice the old king and welcome the new.”
Lawrence was rooted like a standing stone. Sam started forward, but Rosie grabbed his arm and stayed him. He let her, seemingly at a loss. Finally Lawrence spoke. “I know what this absurd ritual means. I never thought I’d see the day when it was enacted against your Gatekeeper.”
“Then you know that the accepted procedure is to step down and leave,” said Comyn.
Lawrence laughed. “You can’t make me leave my own house.”
“No, we can’t prize you out of the old shell, it’s true. The condemnation of the Aetherial community is something else. It is a vote of no confidence. It’s the stripping away of any position and respect you had left.”
Lawrence turned grey. He began to shake slightly. Rosie felt horrified for him.
“This is blasphemy!” he said. “Let me see the faces of those who would drive me out. I know you, Comyn—this is no surprise from you—but the others? At least have the courage to show me your faces!”
A moment of uncomfortable stillness, then the masks began to come off. Sapphire and Phyllida were among them. All the Aetherials stared flatly at Lawrence. His attention in return flicked over their heads straight to Auberon. “Even you?” He gave a horrible laugh. “Of course you! You were only ever biding your time! I can’t stand against this wholesale condemnation, can I?”
“You brought it upon yourself,” said Comyn.
“You traitors,” Lawrence whispered. “You wretched, backstabbing traitors, all of you. Idiots!”
“You can see from our clothes that we took no part in this and knew nothing about it until it began,” called Auberon. “Nor do I approve of it. However, you know this can’t go on. Lawrence, please. For the sake of peace, step down.”
“Have you come to kill me?”
“Of course not,” said Comyn.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Let Lucas go,” said Comyn. “Hand him over to us. Let us have our Gatekeeper again. What you do after that, no one cares.”
Rosie saw Luc’s face open up in terror. He looked at Lawrence and said, “Father?”
“Hand him over?” Lawrence’s tone was contemptuous. His hand crept around Lucas’s shoulders, drawing him forward. “He’s not a hostage. He’s not your slave. What makes you think he can open the Great Gates without my help, or indeed my permission?”
“So you’ve spent these weeks brainwashing him, have you? A desperate attempt to cling to your power? Give him up, Lawrence. It’s over.”
A chorus of Aetherial voices rose. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas! Lawrence waited sourly for it to subside. Both his hands rested on Lucas’s shoulders, fingers tapping a spidery rhythm. His eyes were glinting ice. “Yes, it is over,” he said. “You’ve got your way, Comyn. What do you want him to do for you?”
“To open the Gates, obviously.”
“And you are certain that is what you want?”
“Yes,” Comyn answered steadily. “Free access. It’s our right.”
“Even after due consideration of my warnings?”
“We don’t recognize your warnings.” Impatience edged his voice. “Whatever the danger, we’ll face it, fight it and defeat it!” There were cheers and yells. “The Great Gates must be opened!”
Lawrence paused for a few heartbeats, staring bleakly at them. “If that’s what you want—then so be it.” Lawrence seized Lucas’s arm and manhandled him from the house, sidestepping the fallen stag and pushing roughly through the front lines of the mob. They were taken by surprise. Lucas exclaimed in protest, but let himself be marched in the direction of Freya’s Crown.
“Follow us, then,” Lawrence called over his shoulder and suddenly, despite everything, he was in command again. “Then we’ll see if this is what you want. Come on. Are you afraid?”
Sam and Rosie followed on the edges of the crowd. They were somehow caught in the tug of the current, unable to intervene, not even sure they should. She saw her parents trying to remonstrate with Lawrence, only to be shouldered aside and crowded out by Comyn’s mob. Rosie couldn’t get near them.
Reaching Freya’s Crown, Lawrence gripped Lucas by the shoulders and turned him to face the rocks. Rosie caught a glimpse of Luc’s expression; white, startled, way out of his depth. Instinct told her this must not happen, but she couldn’t make a move. A spell lay over them, a force born of their massed will. They were no longer individuals but a single surging entity. Rosie couldn’t be the one to step out and stop this. Even Sam couldn’t.
The Dusklands shimmered softly around them and the gate mound found its true form; towering, shining. The crowd gathered in the dip. Among them she saw lavender glints of albinite. Lawrence was speaking to Lucas, whose voice came back faint. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“But you said . . .”
“What I said doesn’t matter. We must serve the will of the mob. Comyn is right; I cannot hold it back any longer. Let them have their way. Let it be over.”
Sam made a move forward, yelling, “Dad, no,” only to be stopped dead by Comyn’s arm shooting out like a steel barrier across his chest. The blow knocked him to the ground; Rosie went to help him up but too late, no one now could stop the ritual.
“I don’t know how,” Luc was protesting.
“Yes, you do. As I told you. Work calmly through each stage, then your instinct will take charge.”
“The apple branch—”
“Is symbolic. Your heel will do. Begin.”
Visibly shaking, Lucas stepped up to the Gates. His hands flew over the surface, pressing here and there, drawing runes. From within the rocks came a deep grinding and rumbling. Lights glowed; pressure in the air made Rosie dizzy.
Lawrence yelled suddenly, “Come then, and do your worst!”
At the same moment, Lucas shouted an incoherent word, and stamped on a rock with his boot. The blow was almost triumphant. Dazzling light spilled out. All the points of albinite flared blood red. Lawrence screamed.
Against the glare, Rosie made out the rock shells of the inner gates grinding one inside another until all the gaps came into alignment. No subtle crack of a Lychgate, this, but a triumphal archway. Armies could have marched through it. The nig
ht lit up. There were cries and gasps all around.
In her mind, she had an image of a vast black statue carved into the wall of the Abyss. It raised its great head at Lawrence’s call, responding to the pull of the Gates. Its solid form was turning liquid and flowing upwards from the Abyss, its silhouette towering against the night . . .
In the huge bright archway of the Gates, something was coming—a spindly darkness, taking shape against the brilliance, flickering and changing as it came; a vast blackness rushing towards them from a very great distance.
With it came a crescendo of sound, like the roar of machinery and tornadoes. Against it, Lawrence was screaming and sobbing on his knees, “I’m sorry—my sons, I’m sorry.” Then the light and darkness came rushing out together, and the world was torn away into a firestorm.
24
Last Days of Empire
Pain split Rosie’s head apart. An image of bright-edged blackness filled her vision. She couldn’t see or think. The world roared.
She became aware that the steel band around her forearm was Sam’s hand, that he was dragging her along with him as they ran for their lives downhill among a mass of moving shadows. A violent thunderstorm ravaged the sky. All around there were shouts and screams, snatched away on a tornado. Ferocious blasts of wind ripped branches from the trees, nearly swept them off their feet.
Rosie cried out as flying twigs lashed her. Something was coming after them. That was all she knew. The scar on her ribs was a circle of fire.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Through a jagged, blinding aura she saw humps that could have been rocks or fallen Aetherials. No rain fell; the atmosphere was heavy with electricity. Lightning drenched Freya’s Crown, making it jump between light and dark. The towering, burning shadow that was Brawth could not be seen clearly—it was simply everywhere, inescapable.
“. . . get off the hill before we get fried,” Sam was saying; she could barely hear him. Fleeing figures scattered like cockroaches retreating from light. She heard their fading cries of alarm. She recognized no one.
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