On the only visible strip of beach below us and a little way to the left, a single heron stood motionless on a brown expanse of sea wrack. I swallowed. The shoreline where it stood didn’t run out; it just disappeared beneath us, because there was no angle to the cliff at all. It was a straight unbroken plunge to the loch below, and beyond the loch’s mouth the dying light was luminous on a metallic sea. My head swam and I took a quick step back.
‘Where are we going now, then?’
Seth swung his leg over the roan’s neck and jumped down, then unbuckled the throatlash of its bridle. ‘Down there.’
‘Yeah, right, listen,’ I began, with all the aggression I could muster. ‘I don’t know why you’re taking that bridle off because we’re going to have to find another way round and we might as well ride. There’s nothing left of my poor arse to hurt, believe me.’
‘Believe me, there isn’t another way,’ said Seth curtly. ‘Horses don’t climb.’
‘There’s a happy coincidence. Neither do I.’
‘Yes, you do.’
I shook my head, but when I stepped back I bumped into Rory. He put his arms round me but he didn’t open his mouth in my defence, the tosser.
The blue was fading from the sea loch and in the evening light its still opaque surface was sheened with eerie ultra-violet. It was all a very long way away, vertically speaking. I stared at Seth. ‘I’m not going down there.’
‘You’ve got to,’ said Seth with a banal smirk. ‘I’m not leaving you here with two hungry kelpies.’
I gulped hard again and glanced nervously at the roan. It had an expectant look on its face. ‘You’ve got a point there,’ I said. ‘The trouble is I’ve got as much chance with that cliff as I’ve got with the kelpie.’
Seth muttered a curse. ‘We’re going down there, Hannah. Look. Climb above me, and I mean right above me. Follow me and use the same handholds. Okay? Would that make you feel better?’
‘Great. So if I fall I’ll just kill the both of us.’
‘You’re not going to fall,’ he said patiently. ‘It’s an easy climb. So many handholds the hardest part is choosing one, okay? And if you do fall I’ll catch you. Right? Now.’ He’d lowered himself a metre down the rockface before I could argue, and now he was grinning up at me. Smugly. ‘Come here, then.’
It seemed like I didn’t have a choice. At least I’d kill him while I was killing myself, I thought vindictively.
I started to climb, practically in his arms. Handholds were easier to find than footholds, given that I was unwilling to open my eyes and look down, but Seth was tugging my reluctant feet onto jutting bits of rock or jamming them into cracks. He growled at the extra effort, but he said nothing intelligible.
I had to rely on him, I couldn’t help it. I was shaking with fear and it was all I could do to seize the handholds after he let them go. Every time I gripped a solid blade of protruding stone, felt my weight hang securely on it, I knew I’d never be able to let it go to reach for another one. But every time I did, only because Seth was lowering himself painfully slowly but steadily, and if I held on too long he would get too far away and my safety net would disappear. He’d made out it was easy, but I couldn’t help noticing that his own knuckles were white and strained.
Rory was making light work of it off to my right, but his anxious glance strayed constantly to me and his father. I risked a sideways look, and gave him a lovely confident smile, not wanting him to think I was pathetic.
So that was when I slipped.
My feet went first, flailing into Seth’s face, and then in my panic first one hand lost its grip, and then, as I swung by one arm, so did the other. I screamed once, briefly, and then I thudded into Seth.
His body jerked back and he yelled with pain, but his fingers were dug deep into cracks in the rock and though his feet scrabbled wildly, they quickly found their contact with the cliff.
His voice when it came was a strangled screech. ‘Hannah!’
I knew from the sound of it how close he was to falling, and I grabbed at the rock, finding holds more by accident than intent. When my fingers were clinging to the rock again, I dragged my weight up and off him, and pressed myself to the cliff face. Since every cell in my body had turned to ice, I couldn’t even cry.
‘How many times do you need to be told, Hannah?’ He was breathing fast and his laugh was brief and pitched high with fright. ‘Get a grip.’
‘Yes.’ I shut my eyes and sucked in deep breaths. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’ve been kicked in the face enough, right?’ he added.
I saw Rory turn away, and I thought that maybe it was just as well he couldn’t see in Seth’s head right now.
At least it couldn’t get any worse than that moment. When my feet touched solid ground and Seth’s hands closed briefly on my arms, I had never felt so proud of myself in my life. At least it was over. We couldn’t go lower than sea level. From here on it would be easy.
‘Now,’ Seth said as Rory jumped down the last few feet, ‘let’s not hang about.’
He picked his way along between the cliff and the sea as the heron took off with lazy wingbeats along the tangle-strewn shoreline, disappearing round the curve of the bay to roost for the night. No such luck for us. I watched Seth run his hands along the rock. I had a bad feeling about this.
‘There,’ he said at last.
Rory and I looked at each other, then back at the cliff face where Seth stood staring with such satisfaction at a shallow cave in the rock. Even from outside, even in the deepening summer dusk, we could see it led nowhere. It was perhaps six feet deep, the entrance only five feet high, and Seth had to duck to go inside.
Seth moved deeper into the cave and ran his fingers down a crack in the rock. It widened towards the sandy floor, until it was large enough for a crawl space, but there was nothing behind it but more rock.
‘See, Rory?’ Seth took his wrist and drew him forwards. ‘Feel something there?’
Rory frowned, touching it delicately with his fingertips. ‘The rock... no, hang on...’
‘Go on into the gap.’
Rory ducked down. He hesitated for a moment, then laughed, and my eyes widened as I saw him scramble forward into what looked like a solid rockface. And then it wasn’t rock. It was just empty space, and darkness.
‘There, see? There’s a tunnel. All the way to the dun. Leonora’s little secret.’ There was a note of boyish smugness in Seth’s voice.
‘Nice glamour she cast,’ said Rory admiringly. ‘But doesn’t Kate know about this?’
‘Rory, nobody in the dun knows about it, let alone Kate. Leonora thought she took the knowledge to the Selkyr, the old witch. Conal and Aonghas and I found it, and the two of them...’ He shrugged. ‘Rory, when you open the Veil, how long will it stay open? I mean, minutes, hours? Days?’
‘Days, if it’s a decent-sized rip,’ said Rory with confidence. ‘Two or three at the most, though.’
‘And you can seal it yourself ?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ Seth smiled. ‘Let’s go. Let me know when you feel the Veil thicken near the dun, okay? Then we’ll go through. As soon as we do, you have to block, both of you. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ said Rory.
‘No,’ I moaned. I’d stood here long enough in silence, knowing what was coming, but now that they’d said it out loud I reckoned I’d just swim out to sea and drown myself. Or maybe it was worth begging? ‘No, no, no. I hate tunnels. Rory, you know I do. I hate tunnels more than I hate cliffs.’
‘Aw, you’re doing great.’ Seth grinned. ‘You’re fabulous.’
And I fell for that kind of buttering-up, I thought hours later, as I fumbled and stumbled through pitch darkness. It was so much later that I barely liked to think how deep we were inside the coastline, how much rock there was above our heads. If Seth wasn’t in such an almighty hurry, I thought grumpily, he might have gone back to the nearest shop for a torch. But oh, no, we were expected to find our way underg
round with no light whatsoever.
‘There’s no forks. No other tunnels. A few turns, a few ups and downs where the rock must have been tougher, but it’s one long passage,’ he’d said, shrugging. ‘What d’you need a torch for? It’d be nicer but it wouldn’t really help, would it?’
That was a matter of opinion. I had never been in such total darkness in my life. It was worse than Suil’s caverns, blacker by far. I knew now that I’d liked Suil’s tunnels with their faint phosphorescence. Besides, I’d seen plenty of movies and in these situations there was always a nice backlit glow. Water gleaming on the walls. Anything.
And it was so cold. My whole body shuddered with it from my skin to my bones, and the silence grated against my chilled nerves. Occasionally Seth would speak Rory’s name, and Rory would say something monosyllabic in return, but it was hardly conversation, and I did not see the point of it. I couldn’t help noticing that Seth hardly ever spoke to me, and I was starting to be offended, given that I’d just saved his life.
‘Does this…’ I began, and hesitated. Maybe that was why nobody said much. My voice seemed very small, drowned in blackness. I cleared my throat and tried to sound braver. ‘Does this not bother you?’
‘What?’ said Rory behind me.
‘The fact we can’t see a thing.’ That wasn’t strictly true. When Seth turned to me, or when I glanced over my shoulder to locate Rory, their eyelight was visible, though it was nothing like strong enough to make any impact on the dark. It glowed on its own, a faint gleam like a fish in the deep ocean, lighting nothing beyond itself, though at least it was a visible touchstone in the darkness.
‘Doesn’t bother me. Why? Not scared, are you, Hannah?’ There was a touch of mockery in Seth’s disembodied voice.
‘All right,’ I snapped. ‘All right, I’m scared of heights, I’m scared of the dark. Oh, yeah, and I’m scared of your horse. And that’s it, okay?’
‘Okay. Deal.’ The mockery was gone, though my ears and my dignity were alert for it. ‘Look, try and feel a little ahead with your mind.’ He paused. ‘Rory?’
‘Yeah, Dad.’
That little exchange yet again, and as usual neither of them said anything else. I scowled into the darkness, feeling left out, until my eyes widened with a sickening realisation. They were only checking each other’s position. Each checking the other was still there. And Seth wasn’t speaking to me because he knew where I was anyway. He could still See me, after all. I gulped.
‘That’s okay.’ Seth’s voice was a soft murmur ahead of me. ‘I knew you’d work it out.’
And it would have hurt too much to explain out loud, I realised guiltily. Making an effort not to think about that, I thought about the dun instead, pictured it in my head, imagined how it would be to get a decent meal and some sleep. I even imagined the tongue-lashing I’d get from Jed and Finn. What was it like, being tarred and feathered? I’d always thought it might be kind of fun, like a very wild hen party.
Anything rather than think about how long this tunnel must be, how ancient it was and what prehistoric things might lurk in the darkness. Anything rather than contemplate how far we’d come already and how much further we’d have to go in the pitch dark. We must have walked miles already, entirely blind.
There was way too much time to think, and nothing to do but put one foot cautiously in front of the other. In my whole life I’d never felt so vulnerable. If something large and slimy and sharp-toothed came at me, I might hear a last-moment slither but I wouldn’t really know about it till fangs closed on my throat…
Oh, bad imagination. I tried to put on a burst of speed, stubbed my toe on a rough lump of rock and yelped as I stumbled. A hand touched my arm and I shrieked, then saw the double pinprick glow of Seth’s eyelight as he turned.
‘Okay, Hannah?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I squeaked.
‘Rory?’
‘Dad.’
Seth let go of my arm and I felt him move away, but almost immediately there was a small splashing sound and he cursed.
‘What? What?’
A few more experimental splashes, the tone changing so that I could hear he was wading deeper. ‘It takes a dip here. It’s flooded.’
I rolled my eyeballs, a wasted gesture and a disorienting experience when nothing was visible.
‘Oh, how did I just know that was going to happen?’
‘You’re not really helping, Hannah.’ Seth sounded as if he was speaking through his teeth. ‘It’s not the first time it’s been flooded. There used to be a rope.’
‘“Used to be”,’ I echoed. Rory was silent behind me.
There was a dull sound of iron banging against rock. ‘That’s the ring it was tied to. The rope’s rotted. Rory?’
‘Dad.’
Seth sighed. ‘Okay, it’s not that far but it’s quite narrow. You just have to pull yourself along against the wall.’
‘Okay,’ said Rory.
‘Okay?’ I screeched. ‘You mean we’re going on? I’ve seen this bit in the movies and somebody always drowns.’
‘You watch too many films,’ said Seth. ‘Have you got another suggestion?’
‘I’ve got several, pal.’
‘All anatomical, though.’ There was a grin in his voice. ‘Nothing constructive?’
I made a hideous face and mouthed some choice swear words in the darkness, but ‘No,’ I admitted at last.
‘I heard every word of that, Hannah Falconer,’ said Seth, but this time his teeth were clenched against laughter, I could hear it. ‘Really it isn’t hard. Take lots of breaths before you go and keep moving. Just don’t panic. Okay?’
He must have taken silence for agreement because the next thing I heard was him wading forward into water. I heard him breathing deeply, filling his lungs, and then there was one more subdued splash and silence. It was worse than the silence that had gone before. I could feel less human presence in it, and I shivered.
‘Want to go first, then?’ asked Rory quietly.
I hesitated, torn. I did not want to go into that water at all, and I very much wanted to put off the moment as long as possible. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be left alone in the darkness, not even for a moment. If I was left alone, I might never get the courage to go into the water, and then what would I do? Sit in the blackness alone till Doomsday, or make my way back along the miles of tunnel alone, blind and freezing and terrified? Oh, no. I might as well drown now as die of fear later.
I looked over my shoulder, locating Rory by the tiny silver dots of his eyes. The sight of it was eerie but reassuring. ‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Hannah,’ he said.
‘What?’ I was snappy with nerves.
I felt his fingertips graze my arm, then his hand closed around it. Rory pulled me carefully against him in the darkness, and he took an involuntary breath.
‘What?’ I said again, a lot less snappily.
In the silence I found his tangled grubby hair with my fingers, then ran my hands down across his ears and found his cheekbones. His face felt thinner. I hadn’t noticed that, just looking at him in the daylight, but I could feel the difference in the darkness. It felt like an older face. Less like a boy, more like a man.
His hand slipped behind my neck and he laced his fingers through my roughly chopped hair. I was glad Eili had cut it, since there was less of it to be a greasy mess: maybe pitch darkness had its advantages. We were both filthy and sweaty and pretty smelly but he tasted the same, I decided, finding his mouth first with my fingers and then with my own mouth. What would be nice now would be just to melt into him, climb inside his head and body altogether and be protected until Seth came back with the cavalry.
It wasn’t going to happen. I could feel the solid thump of his heart against my ribcage and the echoing banging of my own.
No, really, we couldn’t just stand here. Nice as it would be.
Sighing, I ran my hands down his chest and stomach and shoved him reluctantly away. The manoeuvre provoked a
satisfying squeak.
‘What?’ I said it yet again, clearing my own throat. Heat rushed into my skin.
‘Nothing. That’s fine.’ His lower lip grazed my upper lip in the darkness, and our noses bumped briefly. ‘Just, I feel better now.’
That’s nice, I thought, because I think I’m going to have a frigging heart attack, but okay, so long as you feel better…
Rory gave a nervous laugh, and I realised he’d heard me. If I could have seen his shin I might have kicked it. Instead, tentatively, I felt my way forward, one hand on the damp stone wall to make sure I was going in the right direction. For a moment I thought I’d got it wrong anyway, that I’d turned a hundred and eighty degrees and had my hand on the wrong wall, but just as I felt the stirrings of panic, the ground dipped beneath my feet. Shortening my steps, I felt my feet touch water. I walked on till I was ankle deep, and took a shocked breath.
Oh. Oh. The cold clamped around my ankles as if it was trying to cut off my feet. I considered the imminent prospect of immersing my entire body in it, and I whimpered.
‘What is it?’ hissed Rory.
‘Cold. I’ll just warn you.’ I started to breathe the way I’d heard Seth do it, only I couldn’t. The stale air shuddered in and out of my lungs as I waded deeper, my fingertips dragging the wall and then the ceiling as it sloped down to meet me. My next step took me up to my thighs, the next to my waist, and I knew if the slope was constant the next would take me out of my depth.
I knew if I waited and thought about it any more I wasn’t going to do this. I took a final scared gasp and submerged.
I nearly pushed myself straight back out. The icy water tightened around my chest like steel bands, already trying to force the air out of me. A couple of bubbles escaped from my lips and I doubled over and kicked down, forcing myself head first into the flooded tunnel. My scalp scraped the rock ceiling and I pushed myself pointlessly down and away from it. For a moment I flailed there, unable to move, then my frozen brain remembered what Seth had said. Pull yourself along against the wall. I reached out numb fingertips and began to lever myself along, forgetting about kicking.
Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) Page 34