by Simon Kewin
She took one of the plain silver chains from her neck and placed it around his, next to his string of dragonrider memory stones. He'd asked her about the jewellery she wore more than once, imagining it had some great meaning or significance to her. But the necklace was just a cheap chain from Bling Thing. The precious seeing stone her gran had given her was still around her neck. But Ran would know the gift was from her. That was what mattered.
As they left she glanced back, hoping he'd wake up miraculously and come running to join them. That was what would happen in a movie or a book. But he didn't move and soon he was lost to sight behind the boughs of the trees. Now there were only two of them. Her and Nox. Three if you included Bethany.
They reached the northern edge of the woods two hours later. The White City stood clear before them, the road snaking toward two ornate towers forming a gateway. As Nox had described, there were many other roads arriving from all directions. None of the entrances looked to be guarded. Several teams of undain slaves worked along the roads, hauling carts to and from the city. Supplies of Spirit presumably. Troops of soldiers marched at speed from the south. They didn't appear to be searching for anyone.
“Come on,” said Nox. “Follow me.”
Before she could object, he pulled the hood of the cloak Phoenix had given him over his head and set off for the road. One of the creaking wooden carts was lumbering nearby, pulled by a team of eight or ten undain. There were two of the creatures on each of the cart's giant wheels as well, hauling on the spokes to make the wheels turn.
Cait set off after Nox, pulling her own hood over her head, feeling exposed as she left the eaves of the trees.
Nox hurried to the back of the cart and pretended to join in with the effort of pushing it forward. None of the undain objected. Cait joined him. “Why haven't they noticed us? Why don't they say anything?”
“Because they haven't been told to. They're here to work, not think. It's an excellent system.”
Cait studied the nearest undain, who was heaving one of the wheels forward as if he were steering a vast sailing ship. The creature was skin stretched over bones, his sinews sharp lines as he strained forward. His gaze was vacant when she looked at his face. She wondered who he was, whether he had come from back home. She tried to touch his mind, but there was only the familiar void with no light illuminating it. The empty churns in the cart clanked as they bumped along.
They passed through the archway half an hour later and found themselves on a rutted road with tall, ornately-decorated walls on either side. And everything, everything carved from bone. The smell of the place made Cait gag. It wasn't just the miasma of death. There was a chemical tang in the air, too. All around, undain slaves were scrubbing and polishing the floors and walls with cleaning fluid. It masked the underlying scent of decay, which somehow made it worse.
A deep sense of dread had filled Cait as they approached but now that they were inside the walls it redoubled. And it wasn't simply her own fear churning away. It was in the air. She could feel it. A background roar of rage and fury coming at her from every angle. It made her weak to taste it. The combined auras of all the undain.
How many were there around her? Many, many thousands. And what would they do if they knew she was there, the one they sought, calmly walking though the gates? She tried not to think about it.
A few yards farther, the undain hauling the cart stopped and wheeled the vehicle around to point toward another archway up a steep hill. A number of carts stood waiting in a line.
Nox touched her on the shoulder. “This is where we leave them. We need to carry on up the main road.” He indicated the direction with a nod of his head. The thoroughfare opened into a wide square and in the middle, like a vast moored ship, stood a single huge building, all steeples and spikes and arches.
“The Grimoire's kept in there?”
“No, no. That's just one of the minor cathedrals.”
“So they have cathedrals here? They worship gods?”
“What need do they have for gods when they've made themselves immortal? Menhroth is their god as well as their king. He is their creator. He raised them all up with his necromancy.”
“So where is the book?”
“The Cathedral of the Moon is near Menhroth's palace, several miles farther on.”
“Several miles?” It seemed impossible they could get that far without being noticed, especially now that they didn't have the cart to hide behind.
The streets were already busier than back by the gate. Undain slaves shuffling by and, more and more, those who were clearly not slaves: richly dressed nobles, some walking, some being carried on golden seats. There were more cartloads of Spirit being wheeled north, too. Supplies for the army, perhaps.
“Keep your head down and keep moving,” said Nox. “Once we're past this cathedral we'll take to the back streets that only the slaves use.”
“OK.”
They skirted around the vast building, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. Its richly decorated towers reached high into the sky. She'd seen similar buildings back home: huge gothic constructions that must have taken decades, centuries to build. She couldn't help stare in wonder at the intricate carving.
Movement caught her eye part-way up the wall. Above a large doorway, a line of archways was arrayed, in each of which was placed a statue of a skeleton. Except, as she looked on, she could see they weren't statues. They were actual bone, still somehow animated, writhing and reaching into the air but unable to escape. Locked into place in their alcoves. Ragged black birds like the dead crow she'd seen were perched on many of their heads, as if to taunt the skeletons. Occasionally one of the skeletons lifted a bony arm to scare a bird away, but the crows simply flapped in a little circle and settled back where they were.
Were the skeletons alive and aware of their fate? She didn't like to think about it. It was hideous. The whole place was hideous.
“Cait. Come on,” whispered Nox, the anger in his voice clear. “You look like a tourist.”
They moved out of the square, Nox leading her into a narrow alleyway between two buildings with more carved, arched windows. It was darker in the alleyway, the walls too high to let in much sunlight. Cait felt a little safer in the shadows.
She tried not to catch anyone's eye, tried to keep her mind blank as if she, too, were one of the undain. Lines of slaves shuffled along, and she shuffled with them, glad of the anonymity.
The alleyway opened onto a broad road running alongside a canal. She expected the waters to be blood-red but it was just water, some tributary of the An. Many bridges spanned the stream. The nearest, directly ahead, arched across the river in a gentle curve, a cradle of white struts holding it in the air. Lamps had been set up along it, lamps held by more skeletons. These at least weren't moving. Perhaps they were just dead bone. She hoped so.
“Do we have to cross?” she asked.
“It's that or swim. What's the problem?”
They'd be exposed on the bridge, visible all around. She thought back to the pursuit across Manchester, when she and Danny had crossed the old canal and Nox had seen them from his bridge. The memory brought with it a pang of pain. Danny, whom she'd led to his death.
“Nothing,” she said, “Come on. Let's get this over with.”
The wind gusted as they crossed the bridge. She kept her head down, shoulders slumped, eyes on the water visible between the bridge's slats. On the other side, the bone-cobbled road was wide, no shadows to hide in, the sunlight glaring off the endless white. She wished she had sunglasses with her.
There were more and more statues too: men and women in heroic poses, as well as an endless variety of fantastical creatures with bat wings or dagger fangs or monstrous heads. The statues troubled her more than the undain. Something in the unblinking gaze of their blank white eyes gave her the creeps. She couldn't shake the feeling they were watching her. There were more of the black birds, too, perched on the statues, in archways, around the tops of th
e buildings. Eyeing her.
They skirted the curving walls of some round tower. One of the nobles being carried on a golden throne passed by, twelve undain slaves supporting his weight. Not thinking, Cait glanced at the noble and there was a moment, the briefest moment, when their gazes met. Quickly Cait lowered her head to stare at the floor. She expected to hear cries and shouts. Surely he would see she wasn't one of them?
No calls came. She didn't dare look back as they joined an even wider, straight road that led into the heart of the city. It fell and rose slightly so that she could see it was thronged with undain. Slaves, soldiers, nobles, many more carts.
They'd only walked a few yards when she heard running footsteps from behind. A great many footsteps, urgent, clattering on the ground, coming nearer. The undain were coming for her, she knew it with sudden certainty. The noble had recognized her, alerted the army. The crows or the statues had raised the alarm. Why did she think she could creep unnoticed into the enemy city? It was insane.
Well. She wouldn't go down without a fight. Perhaps it wouldn't make much difference, but it was all she could do. She began to summon the storm of ice in her mind. It didn't matter if she worked magic now.
“Cait!” Nox pulled her roughly to the side of the road, slamming her against the wall of the building. His voice was an urgent hiss. “What are you doing? Get out of the way.”
A troop of soldiers pounded by, feet stamping, armour clanking. They were racing for the city centre. Not coming for her. She closed her eyes and tried to calm the fury whipping inside her. Her heart thundered and she wondered how it was no one could hear it. The wall behind her was polished smooth against her hands.
When the soldiers were gone, she and Nox set off once more. Five minutes later, Nox turned sharply to the right and led her off the busy road into the hush of a courtyard. There were no undain to be seen. The courtyard was lined on all four sides by ornate pillars, between which ran delicately carved screens of bone. Each was an intricate lattice-work of tiny holes. Holes, she saw, in the shape of so many skulls. Someone had really worked hard to goth the place up. Low benches ran around the edge of the courtyard. In the centre stood a white statue, twice normal size, of a man standing triumphantly upon a mound of lolling dead bodies, all carved from bone. He held aloft a bone crown. Menhroth, presumably.
“Wait here,” said Nox. “This is one of the cloisters of the Holy Court. Stay out of sight.” He indicated the benches beside the entranceway. She would be invisible from the road there. No one would see her unless they came into the courtyard.
“What if someone comes?”
“Say nothing. It won't seem strange; there's no talking here; it's a place for contemplation.”
“Where are you going?”
“To scout around. We need to find out what's going on. With the army mobilising, Menhroth and the rest of the Holy Court will be preoccupied. There's a chance they'll have taken the Grimoire out of protection to carry it north with the army.”
“I don't see why they would.”
“Think, Cait. Because there's a chance the other half of the book has reached Andar. If we know that, they must know that. The undain might plan to take the book with them when they cross the ice so they can reunite the two halves. That might be our chance. Give me an hour. Don't move. If I don't get back then you're on your own, OK?”
“OK,” she said. Although it really wasn't.
He slipped away, and Cait hid herself out of sight of the road, sitting on the bench. Its surface was worn almost to glass by the countless thousands who'd sat there over the centuries. She shut her eyes, trying to force herself to breathe more slowly. Her heart was still racing. She had to suppress the desire to run, flee this hideous place and never come back.
The grim aura she'd sensed earlier rushed into her mind. She had to learn to block it. She sat in silent effort for ten, twenty minutes trying to build walls of fog around her mind. Walls others couldn't pierce. Once again Bethany guided her, showed her how to go about it. The problem was Cait couldn't tell if she was managing it or not. She needed someone to see if they could overcome her defences, and there was no one she could trust to try.
The sound of more running feet on the roadway came to her. More soldiers racing north to join the mobilisation. She pushed herself back against the screen, making sure there was no chance she could be seen.
The running feet stopped. She heard metallic clinks and scrapes. The sounds of swords being drawn. Alarm thumped in her stomach. She made herself remain seated. Maintain the pretence. She covered her head with the cowl of her cloak and lowered her gaze to the ground, as if lost in contemplation.
“You can get up now, Cait.”
It was Nox's voice. Something in his voice sent a chill through her. There was a note of delight. A note of triumph. She looked up. Nox stood before her. Around him were ten or more of the giant dragonriders with their weird transparent skin. It was clear Nox wasn't their prisoner.
Thoughts tumbled incoherently through her brain as she tried to make sense of it. “You … you told them? After everything, you're still with them?”
“Obviously. You really are stupid, aren't you? I kept telling you you were stupid, but you were too stupid to believe me. I mean, I actually led you into the White City and you just followed me.”
“But they cast you out. At Greygyle's palace Charis laughed at you when you tried to betray me.”
Nox shrugged. “Charis was a setback. But they already had you then, so they thought. I wasn't offering them anything. When I talked to them here, said I could hand them the spawn of Ilminion, I was in a much stronger bargaining position.”
“They took you back?”
“They forgave my sins in return for your blood.”
“So now you're one of them again? Just like that?”
“Just like that, Cait. Oh, it was fun travelling with you. I've enjoyed our time together, I really have. And I've learned a lot. But now I've had this better offer so I'm switching sides. Always best to choose the side that's going to win, don't you find? Soon Andar and Angere will be reunited under the rule of King Menhroth. The cloven land and the cloven book will be reformed and the undain's dominance will be assured.”
“You bastard, Nox. You utter bastard.”
“Yes. True. But at least I'm not about to be slaughtered by the undain, so I think, on balance, I can live with it.”
Fury mounted within her at the sight of his self-satisfied smile. She began to work magic, reawakening the swirling storm of ice. But before she could unleash it, before she could do anything, the riders moved, blindingly fast. One raised his hand to strike her with a mailed fist.
There was the briefest thump of pain, and then only darkness.
Eight undain dragonriders flanked Cait as they marched her through the impossibly huge palace of Menhroth. Her head throbbed from the blow she'd received, from the terror hammering through her, from the all-pervading stench of the place. There was nothing she could do. If she stumbled the riders picked her up and pushed her forward.
Nox had betrayed her. The magic had fled her. Bethany had fled her. Danny and her mum were dead. She was walking to meet the Witch King alone. How had it come to this? She wanted to curl up in a ball. She wanted to wake up from the nightmare she was in. But she couldn't.
After what seemed like hours they reached an archway across from the vault, the second or third they'd passed beneath. Moving in harmony the dragonriders sank to the ground and began to crawl. One pulled her leg, instructing her to do the same. The touch of the undain awoke her anger. She was damned if she would. She was sick of the fear, sick of running from them. What more could they do to her?
She walked forward, striding from the squirming wyrm lords behind her. She was trapped and lost, but she wouldn't crawl on her stomach before this so-called King. What the hell made him a king anyway? An accident of birth. She was damned if she'd bow to him.
One of the riders scrambled forward, grabbing her f
oot, intending to pull her to the ground. She kicked at the hand holding her but couldn't break free.
“Let her be.” The distant voice from the far end of the hallway boomed in the great hall. “The heir of Ilminion can be allowed to walk the rest of the way. The rest of you may leave.”
A surprisingly young voice. She'd expected another Charis, another ancient horror.
The grip on her foot let go immediately. She strode forward, eyes on the distant figure who had spoken. The Witch King. The god the undain worshipped. A man dressed in white and gold sitting upon a ridiculously ornate throne, a spiky crown upon his head. He was handsome, too, no doubt about it. That was almost the creepiest thing of all. He was, what, over five hundred years old? Tubes like those she'd seen Greygyle use snaked from his chair directly into his neck, pumping raw Spirit into him. She fancied she could hear the countless tiny screams of all the individuals he was consuming. The sight of him made her stomach heave with sickness and fizz with terror at the same time. His eyes were pure black, hard as polished glass.
She stopped in front of him but refused to bow or curtsey or whatever it was she was supposed to do.
“Cait Weerd,” he said. “It is good to meet you at last.”
“What do you want with me?” she said, trying to sound angry, trying to sound brave. She couldn't stop her voice quavering. “Why am I here?”
“You know why you're here,” said Menhroth. “We have unfinished business. Rituals begun five centuries before you were even born need to be completed. Sealing syllables for so long left unsaid need to be uttered. Now we have the blood and soon we will have the book, and at last, it will be done.”
“Half of the book has been returned to Andar,” said Cait. “They will never let you have it. They'll destroy it first.” She didn't actually know if that was true. For all she was aware, Genera had retrieved the book before it could be taken to safety.