Killian broke in nervously, ‘Sir …’
His father turned to him with a fond smile, standing with one hand resting on the back of the marble chair. ‘What, my prince?’
Killian’s voice was shaking, although he made a good attempt at smiling back. ‘Actually, I wasn’t planning on feeding my slave to dogs.’
Dorocha arched his dark eyebrows. ‘But what else are slaves for, except to be eaten for our amusement?’
Killian kept smiling determinedly. ‘No, but you said I could bring any slave I wanted, and it was Aoife – I mean, this dirty slave! – that I went back for, and I really want to keep her, sir. I mean, when you promised her to me, you didn’t say anything about her being eaten …’
His father laughed. ‘But if I promised you a chicken, I wouldn’t expect you to dress it up and keep it for a pet. I’d expect you to roast it. Now, relax. You’ll be surprised how much you enjoy the show. Zookeeper!’ The devil swept his long coat around him and dropped into the marble seat. ‘Go fetch your sluagh. The prince and I will watch the first act, and then we’ll return in a few days when the dogs have the other traitor half eaten but still alive.’
Lying in the mud, Aoife looked up at Killian as he stood shaking; he cast her a wild glance; his lips were wet and he was white as a sheet; quivering; sick. A too-small boy strapped into a roller coaster, before the ride begins.
Dorocha summoned him. ‘Stand over here!’
‘Coming, sir.’ In his hurry to obey, the heel of Killian’s trainer trod painfully on Aoife’s hair.
Dorocha glanced up as his son joined him. ‘If this death takes too long, we’ll have to leave before the end. Your mother awaits us in her tower. My sweet Deargdue – Queen of the Land of the Dead, and now the true Queen of the Land of the Young.’ Like the devil he was, Dorocha glanced sideways with a sly grin, to check if Aoife had heard and understood him.
Instantly she dropped her eyes – not to give him the pleasure of seeing her fury. (The Deargdue, in her mother’s tower? The Queen of the Dead, presiding over the Land of the Young? That monster.)
She could hear Dorocha laughing – knowing she was only pretending to ignore him.
The next moment there was a stifled shriek of despair from Lois, and Aoife raised her eyes again. Seán Burke had reappeared with the massive sluagh, which was hopping along awkwardly in front of him on a silk leash. Its tattered, leathery wings were folded around its body like a cloak and its bruised, scaly head jutted from side to side, broken beak snapping – heavily injured, but energized by the scent of human blood.
‘Nooooooo!’ squealed Lois, unable to stay silent a moment longer. Mascara was running down her cheeks; blood stained her white clothes. ‘No, Killian, help me, stop them – help me!’
‘Father,’ croaked Killian. ‘Really, don’t you think—’
Writhing and kicking in the mud, Aoife fought to break her iron bracelets, waves of pain rushing up her arms. Dorocha was slapping the arms of the chair in pleasure. ‘Open the cage, Seán Burke, and let’s see your sluagh feast slowly on human flesh!’
‘Nooooooo! Nooooooo!’
‘Yes, my lord.’ The squeaking sound of a rusty bolt.
And suddenly Killian screamed himself – in a ridiculously high, squeaky voice, as if it came from the heart of that too-small boy strapped into the roller coaster: ‘Stop!’
‘Oh, for—’ With an annoyed sigh, the old man stepped back from the door, peering towards the chair. ‘Is it my lord commands me?’
‘No, it’s me.’ Killian was hoarse. ‘Sir – Father – I’m sorry, but I really don’t think we should let this slave get eaten either.’
Aoife held her breath, watching for Dorocha’s reaction. Hoping against hope he loved his son enough to humour him. Clutching, like Lois, at this straw – because there was nothing better to be done.
Dorocha sat gazing at Killian in mild surprise. ‘Is there something you know about this girl, my prince? Is she poisonous? Maybe a merrow would be better. They can digest anything. Zookeeper?’
‘No!’ Killian’s voice shot up again to that childish high. ‘She’s not poisonous. It’s just that I’ve always wanted two slaves to wait on me …’
(Seán Burke complained loudly, ‘My lord? I did promise this sluagh a tasty dinner.’)
Dorocha silenced the old man with a flick of his hand; his eyes still fixed kindly on his son. ‘Two slaves? That’s very demanding of you, my prince.’
‘I know, but … Please, Father?’ And Killian switched on his charming boy-band smile – the one he always used to get what he wanted from his doting human parents. ‘I am a bit demanding, Father! But I’d love to order these silly girls around for all eternity. It would be great fun to have two of them doing my bidding, competing to be the best slave.’
‘I’d love to be a slave!’
‘Shut up, Lois!’ ordered Killian fiercely. ‘You’re not allowed to speak!’
‘Sorr— Oh.’ Lois clapped her hands over her mouth, her small black eyes fixed in fearful hope on the demon father and his son.
‘Oh, very well,’ sighed Dorocha, leaning back in his chair. ‘You can have two slaves.’
‘Oh, thank you, Father!’
‘But only one living slave.’
Silence.
The zookeeper looked interested.
Lois blinked.
After a few seconds Killian said in a dazed voice, ‘But …’
Dorocha lifted his hand. ‘Don’t argue! I know what’s best for you, my prince. This is my birthday gift to you. One living, one dead. One to play with, and one to pay with. We can’t always have our cake and eat it, can we? And it’s not fair to our faithful servant Seán Burke to deprive him of all his entertainment. The wages of death must be paid as promised.’
(‘Much obliged, my lord,’ grinned the zookeeper.)
‘And talking of which, my prince – your mother awaits. So hurry up and choose which one of these vermin you want to see eaten and which one you want to drag along with you to Falias.’
‘Me! Me!’ shrieked Lois, forgetting she wasn’t supposed to speak. ‘Bring me with you, Killian! I’ll be your most wonderful living slave! I can wash dishes, I can mop the floors, I can make your bed, I can do anything you want!’
Dorocha stood up abruptly from his chair and Aoife tensed, head down again – expecting him to call on the dullahan with his whip, to slash poor Lois’s head from her shoulders. But he only stood brushing green hairs from his long black coat, saying calmly, ‘I agree – choose the human girl. Humans smell of mortality and they’re very stupid, but unlike fairies, they’re easily domesticated.’
Seán Burke grumbled, ‘But the sluagh—’
‘Feed the thing rabbits, Seán. And put the other slave in with the dogs. The prince and I need to get back to the queen. And, zookeeper?’
The old man sighed gloomily. ‘Yes, my lord?’
‘As soon as you’re done, I want all your grogoch delivered to our tower.’
Seán Burke looked shocked. ‘Are you sure, my lord? They’re very hard to control.’
‘That’s why I need them for the next act.’ Spinning on his heel, Dorocha raised his slender hand high in the air and clicked his long fingers. There was an immediate thunder of hooves, and two massive black horses came cantering into the arena – glossy muscular brutes with burning red eyes and tendrils of crimson smoke drifting from their nostrils. Dorocha swung himself up on the larger of the two, and turned it towards the exit, saying over his shoulder to Killian, ‘Now, my son, your slave is yours to do with what you want. I suggest you throw her up over your saddle face down like a sack of grain, and once we’re back in Falias you can send her to get her wounds stitched up with leather and have her washed and dressed in decent clothes, and maybe she can sing us a tune.’
‘I can sing better than anyone!’ quavered Lois, clinging gratefully to the bars. ‘I can dance!’
Aoife lay collapsed on her face in the cold, soft mud, her heart thud
ding with relief. Thank God, thank God – it had all worked out for the best. Lois would be quite happy, waiting hand and foot on Killian, until Aoife could figure out some way to rescue them both. And she herself could survive the zoo. The cooshees had risked their lives for her before. They wouldn’t eat her unless they were mad with hunger, and that puppy – she was sure it was Wee Peter – would help her escape. Chew through her ropes, something like that. And then through the bars …
‘I choose Aoife,’ said Killian.
There was a long moment of silence in the dusky, blue-flickering arena. Lois was staring at Killian in stunned disbelief – he was avoiding her eyes, his skin again a sickly yellow. Dorocha, wheeling his horse round, cocked his head slightly to one side – eyes narrowed. The zookeeper was the only one who appeared pleased – he had been having a near impossible job dragging the hungry sluagh away from the cage; now he let it go again and stepped to the cage door. ‘Good choice, young man!’
Aoife found her voice. ‘No, it’s a stupid choice! I don’t want to be anywhere near you, Killian! You disgust me! I’d rather be thrown to the dogs! In fact, throw me to the dogs!’
Dorocha stood up in his stirrups, pointing furiously down at her. ‘Don’t you dare speak to the Prince of Donn like that, you ungrateful slave, or I’ll—’
‘I’ll take care of her, Father!’ Killian jerked Aoife to her feet, twisting her arm, viciously pinching her skin. ‘Don’t worry, Father, sir, I’ll make sure she learns how to behave!’
Dorocha glared at Aoife for a long, hard moment before slowly subsiding back into his saddle. ‘She better had learn to behave or I’ll invent some new torture, just for her. It’s as well she’s your slave, and not my own, or I’d have already shut her mouth for good.’ And, with a glare of his midnight eyes, Dorocha swung his horse towards the exit path and galloped away into the purple dark.
Killian began dragging Aoife towards the remaining beast, with surprising strength. ‘Now, let’s get you up.’
She dug her heels into the mud. ‘No, Killian, no – take Lois.’
‘Yes, take me!’ wept Lois, beating on the bars. ‘Killian, we’ve been best friends since you were four! Aoife’s been horrible to you for all those years! She hates you! She’s a slut! She just now dumped you for Shay Foley!’
‘She’s right! I hate you! I love Shay!’
‘You do not.’ His mouth was set in a stubborn line as he hauled her on. ‘You only went back to Bogger Boy because of the money, and because you thought I’d gone off with Carla. But now I’ve left Carla, and I have all the riches of this world.’
‘Killian, I’ve always hated you!’
‘You’re a liar.’ He took her around the waist and flung her easily onto the monstrous horse – not face down across the saddle, but sitting astride it. With her hands tied behind her back, unable to seize hold of anything, she started slipping over the far side. He grabbed her by the knee, steadying her.
She begged, looking down on him, ‘Killian, leave me here. I can look after myself but Lois will die. Lois is your friend – she’s been your friend for ever.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that? Do you?’ Tears of angry grief welled up in his eyes, and he cried fiercely, ‘I’ll never, ever forgive you for making me have to do this.’
‘You don’t have to do it! Give me to the zookeeper!’
‘Why did you bring her with you, Aoife? You said it yourself, no human could survive in this world for more than two minutes.’
‘Noooooo … Help me!’ screamed Lois. ‘Killian, help me!’
With a shudder, Killian swung up behind Aoife, reaching round her to take the reins. Aoife craned desperately to look back. Lois was crouching in the furthest corner of the cage, gathering up armfuls of straw to cover herself. The zookeeper was on the edge of his marble chair, looking excited. The dullahan stood guard with its whip of human spine. The door of the cage was open, and the sluagh had hopped up inside, high-stepping across the straw, its leathery wings spread wide across the width of the cage.
Killian was sobbing; she could feel his tears falling wet on her bare shoulders. She begged, ‘Killian, stop, go back – don’t do this.’
‘I have to, to save you.’
‘I don’t want to be saved!’
‘Oh, quit playing the martyr.’ He kicked the horse on, savagely.
Behind them, a high, horrible, heart-wrenching scream.
‘Killian, choose Lois!’ screamed Aoife.
‘Be quiet! I choose you!’ He was weeping noisily now as he kicked the monstrous horse on across the plain, cantering faster and faster with great control, despite his anguish. Keeping Aoife safely in the saddle. Years of riding lessons as a spoilt child paying off in the strangest fashion. And as Lois’s screams grew wilder and higher, he broke into a flat-out gallop, his body convulsing against Aoife’s back, overcome with grief for his dying friend, as they thundered on towards the crystal city.
CHAPTER TEN
The moon had not yet risen, and as the valley grew darker, Falias grew brighter – rising before them like a bonfire: lilac and rose-coloured braziers burning in every doorway and courtyard.
Dorocha was already disappearing through the vast bronze city gates. As they reached the bridge, Killian’s horse slowed from a gallop to a canter, then to a trot, hooves echoing over the stone pavement. A putrid stench of decaying meat rose from the dullahans’ heads set along the parapets on either side, filling Aoife’s nose and mouth, revolting her. She leaned sideways and spat, to rid her mouth of the rancid taste. The heads – grinning widely – spat back at her, firing maggots with horrible accuracy: one fat white wriggler hit her in the eye.
Killian snapped, ‘Stop that!’ – his voice still rough from weeping for Lois. When one of the heads continued to spit, he lashed out at it with his foot, sending it with a shriek of fury into the moat. Then said angrily, ‘I did that to protect you, you know. Just as I saved your life back there, even though it was you who got Lois killed. And now I’m just about to do something else for you. Maybe you’ll actually bring yourself to admit you like me, this time. Do you think you will? Third time lucky?’
Clenching her teeth, Aoife stayed silent.
The monstrous horse had slowed again from a trot to a walk as they approached the huge half-open gates, emblazoned with bronze figures descending from a fiery cloud. Inside was a fire-filled darkness, and the sounds of a celebrating crowd: the sweetness of flutes and rattle of bodhráns; fiddle music, and joyful shouts of teenage voices. The soft pad of bare feet marching. So her people, the changelings, the children of the Tuatha Dé Danann, were awake. And all those who had witnessed her coronation were now going to be witness to their queen’s humiliation: riding back into Falias with her hands tied behind her, a helpless captive, filthy with mud and blood.
Far above, the moon was rising behind her mother’s tower.
Her tower.
Where the Deargdue now squatted, pretending to Aoife’s crown.
Some crown.
A silly ring of hawthorn, draped over the head of some nasty little grogoch.
In the empty open space immediately before the gates, Killian slid from the horse and slipped the reins over its head. For a moment Aoife thought he was going to walk her into the city square, displaying her high on the horse like a trophy of war. Instead, he looped the reins around a gargoyle beside the gate: a grinning pooka-head, with pale pink water splashing from its mouth. All the rivulets that trickled down from the pool at the summit of Falias were tainted by the blood of her mother’s final lover.
The man with the long black hair, murdered by Dorocha.
Now Killian lifted her down as well, setting her on her feet to face him and placing his hands on her shoulders. She tensed, dropping her eyes to the stone flags beneath her feet, not wanting to look him in the face. She didn’t want to give any credence to his ridiculous belief that she liked him – if he really thought that was true.
‘Aoife? Look at me – ther
e’s no need to be scared of me.’
She didn’t want to seem cowardly either. Hating that her hands were tied behind her, she raised her eyes.
He was so pale, with his white-blond hair and silver eyes. Dorocha’s ghost-twin. She understood his colouring now, because she knew his mother. She was the Deargdue – the peasant girl who had been turned into a cold-blooded monster by the father who had traded her beauty for silver, and by the boy who had abandoned her out of fear, and by the lord who had tortured her. The beautiful Deargdue, whose hair was like barley in the moonlight, and her gaze like cold sunlight striking through the morning mist. The Deargdue, who had tried to murder Shay.
Killian was smiling gently. ‘See, you can talk to me. I’m not trying to trick you into getting into trouble. You’ll always be allowed to talk to me when my father isn’t listening, and I promise I won’t punish you for it – even though you are my slave.’
She felt sick to the stomach at how he could even begin to imagine he had the right to say such things to her. She said coldly, ‘Fine. I’ll talk to you. You don’t belong here. You need to go home to Kilduff, right now. Home to Joseph and Eithne Doherty, who have always given you everything you ever wanted. Home to “Doherty and Son”, which is your father’s gift of love to you.’
He looked slightly lost – but quickly recovered, and sneered at her: ‘You’re wrong. I always knew those ugly fools weren’t my real parents.’
Anger turned her hot. ‘You want to know who your “real” parents are, Killian Doherty? Your “real” father is the king of death, and your “real” mother’s soul was destroyed by a monster thousands of years ago. If you don’t escape while you can, they will destroy you.’
He said nothing, eyes flickering down.
She pressed on quickly, hoping against hope, ‘Let me help you. We can take the horse and head out into the wilderness and hide until we figure out the best way home …’
But he had pulled himself together, and gone back to sneering – raising his eyebrows at her, Dorocha-like. ‘I’m so flattered you want to bring me with you. It shows you care.’
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