“Just in case you don’t come back,” said the Seneschal helpfully.
Hawk and Fisher looked at each other, shrugged simultaneously, hefted their weapons, then stepped cautiously forward into the room. The sound of their boots on the bare wooden floor was almost painfully loud. Everything still looked the same, but the sense of pressure was immediately much worse. Hawk’s instincts were yelling at him to turn and race out of the room, and his heart beat frantically in his chest as his breathing became harsh and hurried. He just knew something bad was going to happen. His hand tightened on the hilt of his axe until his knuckles went white. He glared quickly about him, but the room remained still and quiet and empty. Close beside him, Fisher advanced step by unwilling step. Her face was strained and pale, and her eyes were almost painfully wide. Hawk and Fisher looked at each other and shared a humorless smile before pressing on, leaning forward slightly like two runners breasting an invisible tape.
They were only half a dozen feet into the room, and already Hawk’s legs were shaking violently, while his stomach muscles clenched in sympathy. The sense of threat was so real now, he could almost touch it. Sweat ran down his face and dripped from his chin. He couldn’t even look around to see how Fisher was doing anymore. He had to concentrate all the willpower he had into taking the next step, and the next. His whole world had narrowed into the room ahead of him, and the trapdoor straight ahead. So he was very surprised when all the lights went out and darkness engulfed him.
The pressure was suddenly gone, and he stumbled forward a few steps before recovering himself. The darkness was absolute, no matter which way he turned his head. For a horrible moment he thought he was back in the Darkwood, alone and abandoned. Panic threatened to overwhelm him before he fought it ruthlessly down. He wasn’t scared of the dark anymore. He wasn’t. He called out to Fisher, and then to Lament and the Seneschal, but there was no reply. Hawk wondered if he was even in the same chamber anymore. Perhaps he and Fisher had triggered some hidden spell of the Magus’, and they’d been transported somewhere else. He had a feeling of space around him, but no way of knowing how great that space was. His breathing speeded up again as he had to consider the possibility that he was indeed back in the rotten heart of the long night and the Darkwood, where it was always dark, dark enough to break anyone.
And then he knelt down and touched the ground beneath him, and relief flooded through him as he felt bare wooden boards with his hand. He was still in the room. He straightened up, angry at how close he’d come to losing control, and moved cautiously forward, his empty hand stretched out before him. He had a box of matches on him, but lighting one would mean putting away his axe, if only for a moment, and he didn’t feel like doing that just yet. Besides, who knew what light might attract in a darkness like this?
And then there was a light, some distance away, right in front of him. A silver glow formed, eerie and unnatural, and out of the growing light came a face from Hawk’s past, when he had another name and another legend. Out of the silver light a dead man came walking, the late King John IV, once ruler of the Forest Kingdom, once Hawk’s father, when he had been Prince Rupert. The King looked just as he had in the final few moments before the last great battle to defend Forest Castle from the imminent demon army. He wore full armor, the breastplate etched and traced with defensive runes, and in his hand he carried that great and awful sword Rockbreaker, one of the ancient and powerful Infernal Devices. When Rockbreaker spoke, the world trembled. The King’s hair was gray, and his face was lined with age and pain and loss, but still he held himself well, standing tall and proud and utterly royal. Hawk had always found it sad that his father had only really learned to be a King at the very end of his life. He held his ground as his father approached and finally came to a halt before him. King John looked his son up and down, his gaze openly contemptuous.
“I know who you are,” said the King.
“Of course you do,” said Hawk. “I don’t suppose much is hidden from the dead. What are you doing here, Father?”
“Your disgrace has raised me from my grave,” said the King harshly. “You have disappointed me, Rupert. You failed me, you failed your brother, and you have failed in your duty to the Land. I brought you into this world, and so I have a responsibility to remove you from it.”
He lunged forward, swinging Rockbreaker with both hands, and at the last moment Hawk brought his axe up to block the blow. They circled each other slowly.
Fisher was lost in the darkness for a while, too, before pushing the fear and the panic the same way Hawk had. She also saw the silver light form, and a familiar face walking out of it toward her. She took up a fighting stance, her sword held out before her, and the late Prince Harald came to a halt a respectful distance away from her. He looked just as she remembered him; tall, well-muscled, classically handsome. He was clad in rune-scored armor and carried in his hand the Infernal Device known as Flarebright. When that terrible blade spoke, the world burned. Harald looked her over slowly, his face cold and emotionless.
“What are you doing here?” asked Fisher, almost angrily. “I went to your Tomb. I heard your message. I’ll find your killer.”
“You should not be here,” said Harald, his voice little more than a whisper. “Your curiosity and trespass have brought you to a place where the dead walk. Here old slights can be avenged, and old hurts eased. If you’d stayed at the Castle, Julia—if you’d loved and stayed with me, I’d still be alive. I should never have trusted you.”
He attacked her then, the long deadly blade of the Infernal Device sweeping in a wide arc. Fisher met it with her own sword, and sparks flared in the darkness as Fisher held her ground. The two swords swung and clashed as Fisher and Harald circled each other, launching attacks that held no mercy on either side. And all the time Fisher was thinking, This can’t be Harald. He wouldn’t do this. And more importantly, Harald never trusted me. He never trusted anyone in his life. And since the Infernal Device should have shattered my ordinary sword by now, this isn’t Harald.
She stepped back, not lowering her guard, but unwilling to continue the fight until she was sure just who and what she was fighting.
Hawk was also beginning to wonder just who and what he was fighting, when the King suddenly disengaged and backed away from him. Hawk didn’t go after him. This couldn’t be the King. He and his father had made their peace with each other long ago. Someone was trying to pull his strings, and he’d never believed in playing someone else’s game. And there’d been something damnably familiar about the skills of the person he’d been fighting. The answer was on the tip of his tongue when a hand grabbed his elbow firmly from behind and pulled him out of the dark and back into the light.
Hawk and Fisher stood together, blinking dazedly in the sudden light of the chamber. Lament held them both by the elbows until he was sure they knew where they were, then he let them go and stepped back to study them thoughtfully. The Seneschal was still in the doorway, looking confused. Hawk rubbed at his eye, and realized he was right back by the chamber door again. He looked at Fisher and then at Lament.
“We were fighting each other, weren’t we?”
“Yes,” said Lament. “You both reached a certain point, stopped dead, muttered a few words, and then attacked each other. It was quite a sight. You’re both excellent fighters. And then you both suddenly stopped, so I seized the moment and hauled you back here.”
“You didn’t see the darkness?” Fisher asked.
“There was no dark,” said the Seneschal. “What happened?”
“The avoidance spell,” said Hawk. “It made us see things. People from our past. Tricked us into attacking each other.”
“Damn,” said Fisher. “I hate being suckered that easily.”
“I have to wonder what other levels there are to the warding spell,” said Lament. “Perhaps I should go in alone after all.”
“Hell with that,” said the Seneschal. “No one tells me where I can and can’t go in my own Castle!”
And he strode forward into the chamber before anyone could stop him.
He felt the building pressure, too, but brushed it briskly aside. The Seneschal was used to being in places where he wasn’t supposed to be. In fact, he took pride in it. He strode on, his head thrust bullishly forward, his hands clenched into fists. He fiercely resented the very existence of the Inverted Cathedral in his nice familiar Castle, and he was in the mood to take out his anger on someone—or something. Darkness blossomed suddenly around him, and he stopped. Out of the silver light came his grandfather, the legendary High Warlock. A short, slender man in black sorcerer’s garb, with frighteningly intense eyes.
“I’m very disappointed in you,” said the High Warlock.
“Oh, piss off,” said the Seneschal. “You’re not my grandfather. He never gave a damn about me. He died still owing me seven birthday presents. Now get the hell out of my way.”
He strode forward, walking right through the image of the High Warlock, and both the image and the darkness disappeared. The chamber reappeared around the Seneschal, who smiled triumphantly. The trapdoor was only a few feet ahead of him. The relentless pressure was as strong as a gale wind now, and the Seneschal had to lean well forward as he pressed on, but he was damned if he’d be stopped now, so close to his goal. And that was when his heart stopped beating, his lungs stopped breathing, and he fell to the floor, dead as any doornail.
Once again Lament had to go into the chamber and pull out the lifeless body of the Seneschal. Lament laid him out on his back by the doorway, and Fisher knelt beside him to do mouth to mouth while Hawk did vigorous compressions on his chest. You picked up a lot of emergency medical procedures, working in the Haven Guard. The Seneschal jerked suddenly as he started breathing again, and Hawk and Fisher backed away from him. The Seneschal sat up slowly, and coughed and spluttered for a while, clutching at his bruised chest with one hand. It was a while before he was able to explain what had happened, and the Walking Man nodded thoughtfully.
“The next level of the avoidance spell,” he said finally. “Presumably only the illusion of a heart attack rather than the real thing, which is why you were able to recover so quickly once I dragged you back here.”
“It was a bloody convincing illusion,” said the Seneschal, scrambling awkwardly to his feet while waving aside offers of assistance. “I am going to have strong words with the Magus about this. So what do we do now? That layer of the spell will stop anyone who gets too close to the trapdoor.”
“Not necessarily,” said Hawk, giving Lament a hard look. “I can’t help noticing that you walked in and out of this room twice without even hesitating. Didn’t you feel anything?”
“No,” said Lament. “As the Walking Man, I walk in straight lines to go where I must and do what I must, and because this is God’s will made manifest, nothing can stand in my way or delay my journey. Including, it would appear, the avoidance spell of a certain Magus. I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to walk right up to that trapdoor, unaffected by anything the wards can throw at me.”
“You knew that all along,” Fisher said accusingly. “So why did you let us go in first and trigger the defenses?”
“Because I wanted to see what they would do,” said Lament calmly. “I wanted to know what the Magus was capable of.”
“Don’t hit him, Isobel,” Hawk said quickly. “We need him.”
Fisher growled something under her breath and glared at Lament. He smiled back, entirely undisturbed.
“It seems to me,” he said mildly, “that if we were all to walk into the room together, with all of you sticking very close to me, your proximity to my holy nature should be enough to protect you from the wards.”
“And if it doesn’t?” asked the Seneschal, just a little testily, still rubbing at his chest.
“Then I’ll drag you back out, and you get to say I told you so,” said Lament. “And I will continue this quest alone.” He paused to look at the others in turn. “I would prefer company.”
“Yeah,” said Fisher. “Just like the miner who takes a canary in a cage in with him to check for bad air.”
“Exactly,” said Lament. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“Isobel …” Hawk warned.
* * *
They walked into the room together, Hawk and Fisher and the Seneschal pressing as close to Lament as they could get without actually climbing into his pockets. This time there was only the briefest feeling of an opposing pressure, which burst like a soap bubble against the Walking Man’s certainty. They crossed the empty chamber unopposed, and finally knelt beside the trapdoor in the floor, studying it carefully from different angles and what they hoped was a safe distance. Somewhere far away, something screamed once with rage.
“What the hell was that?” asked Fisher, glaring about her.
“The Magus, perhaps,” said Lament, not looking at her, all his attention focused on the trapdoor. “Having his wards broken so abruptly was probably rather unpleasant for him. Or possibly the scream could have come from somewhere inside the Inverted Cathedral. Which means that whatever’s in there knows we’re coming, and that we won’t be easily stopped.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” said Hawk. “It must be wonderful to always be so sure of things.”
“Oh, it is,” agreed Lament. “You have no idea. Faith means never having to say you’re uncertain.”
He leaned out over the trapdoor, studying it closely, but still careful not to touch it. Hawk watched him do it, momentarily distracted by a new thought. Harald’s killer had walked right through the Magus’ strongest wards to reach him. But Lament hadn’t been in the Castle then. As far as anybody knew. Hawk frowned. The Lady of the Lake had said he already knew who killed Harald but didn’t want to admit it. Hawk smiled sourly. If so, it was news to him. Anyway, that would all have to wait until they’d finished their business inside the Inverted Cathedral and returned. Assuming any of them did return. He made himself concentrate on the trapdoor, six square feet of unpolished wood held shut by a simple steel bolt. It looked straightforward enough. If anything, too straightforward. In fact, everything about it set off Hawk’s worst instincts.
“I have a really bad feeling about that trapdoor,” said Fisher, close beside him.
“You are not alone,” said the Seneschal. “There’s magic in that trapdoor, I can sense it. Strong magic, soaked into the wood itself. Entirely separate from the avoidance spell.”
“A booby trap,” said Lament, nodding. “Presumably set to be activated by whoever is foolish enough to open the trapdoor. Let’s see what happens when I push back the bolt from a safe distance.”
He stood up and stepped well back, and everyone hurried to get behind him. Lament slowly pushed back the bolt with the steel tip of his long staff. Nothing happened until the bolt was all the way back, then there was a loud bang, a flash of something moving too quickly to be seen, and then another loud bang as the trapdoor, ripped free from its hinges, slammed against the ceiling overhead with vicious force. The ceiling’s plaster cracked jaggedly from the impact, and flakes fell slowly to the floor. The trapdoor stayed where it was. The four members of the investigating party craned their necks to get a good look at it.
“If any of us had been leaning over the trapdoor when we opened it,” Hawk said slowly, “part or all of us would have ended up as the meat in a very nasty sandwich.”
“Ouch,” said Fisher. “The Magus really did want to stop people getting in.” She looked at the Seneschal. “Can you sense any more booby traps?”
“No,” said the Seneschal, frowning as he peered dubiously at the newly revealed gap in the floor. “But this opening is positively crawling with magic. There’s so much power radiating from it, I can feel it in my bones. And I mean old magic, far beyond anything I’d expect the Magus to be capable of. I’d say we’ve found our entrance to the Inverted Cathedral. And it gives me the creeps something fierce.”
They all crowded aro
und the open space, working up the nerve to peer in while trying very hard not to think about the trapdoor overhead, still stuck to the ceiling. When they did finally look, all they could see was six square feet of drifting clouds. And not nice, fluffy, white cotton clouds, either; these clouds were dark and threatening, boiling and churning like a fast-building thunderstorm. There was a low rumbling deep within the clouds, like something growling. Lament dipped the steel end of his staff into the clouds, and nothing happened. He slowly thrust the staff further and further in, until he was kneeling beside the square, with his arm fully extended and his hand nearly touching the clouds. He stirred the staff around for a while, to no obvious effect, and then stood up again, withdrawing his staff. It seemed unaffected, though beaded here and there with drops of water.
“Well,” he said easily, “the next step requires a volunteer.”
“Why do I just know it’s going to be me?” asked Hawk.
“Because we need Lament for his power, the Seneschal for his magic, and I’ve got more sense,” said Fisher. “Guess who that leaves?”
“If anyone thinks I am just going to jump blindly into those clouds …”
“No, of course we don’t think that,” said Lament. “Far too many things could go wrong, and if you just disappeared, we’d have no way of knowing what. Since the Cathedral is Inverted, it could drop away into the earth for several hundred feet. Or more. I have a coil of rope with me. We’ll tie one end round your ankles, and then lower you headfirst into the clouds. All you have to do is yell back once you’ve ascertained what’s beyond them.”
Hawk shook his head slowly. “I never did like heights.”
“Think of them as depths,” suggested Fisher.
“You’re not helping, Isobel.”
“You’ll be perfectly safe with all of us on the other end of the rope,” said Lament with the easy assurance of someone who wasn’t going. “If you see anything at all worrying, just yell out and we’ll pull you back up.”
Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) Page 40