Bright Ruin

by Vic James

  They were strong, those women and children. They found deep sources of resilience. And Coira was the most resilient person Luke had ever met.

  His flight north with Crovan had been through the night, until they arrived at Eilean Dòchais in the flaming dawn, so Luke had never seen Britain from the air before. During school holidays, his parents had tried to show their three kids the loveliest parts of the country: the Lake District, the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales. Dad had herded them yelping into the chilly sea on the north Wales coast for a swim; Mum had chivvied them up Mount Snowdon, with the promise of hot chocolate at the top.

  The absence of his family pierced Luke. He was still worried sick about Abi, who was who knew where after running away from Gavar Jardine. He hoped the heir was doing a better job of protecting Daisy. Although they were in the dump that was Millmoor, Mum and Dad were the safest of the lot of them.

  Luke suddenly missed them desperately. He thumbed the two-way button on his headset and spoke to the pilot.

  ‘Can you fly over Manchester? Over Millmoor?’

  ‘There’s a no-fly zone over slavetowns. But I’ll let you know when we’re close.’

  Luke clicked off the connection and sat there with his eyes shut, trying to calm himself by working through all the potential scenarios at Eilean Dòchais. There was one crucial thing to remember: that they wouldn’t be able to leave the castle without Coira’s permission. They had to know she was inside before they entered.

  ‘Millmoor on your right,’ crackled the headset, some time later.

  Luke leaned over Silyen – who complained feebly – and looked down. The pilot banked the copter to give a better view.

  Tears welled in Luke’s eyes. He could see it perfectly now, this city that he’d learned street by street under Renie and Jackson’s tutelage. There were its quartered districts: the Machine Park, where he’d laboured in Zone D; the Comms Zone with its hangar-1ike call centres. In one of those, he’d first met the Club: Jackson and Oz, Hilda and Tilda, Jess and Asif. That was the meatpacking district and there the derelict old quarter, Britain’s first industrial zone, where the slavedays had taken on their brutal modern form as backbreaking factory work.

  Those vast tarmac squares were the vehicle depots, hopefully Dad’s workplace. Luke had no idea which of the low white buildings was the admission clinic, or the hospital, but Mum would be in one of them, he was sure.

  Within the outer zones was the ring of housing. And nestled at the heart of it all, the bullseye at which Jackson had taken aim: the administration hub. That had been Luke’s last sight of Millmoor, before Gavar Jardine had spirited him away with the best of intentions and the worst of outcomes.

  Silyen was pawing at him and Luke jerked back.

  ‘I said,’ the Equal grumbled, still looking wan, ‘what’s so interesting? Or are you actually trying to smother me?’

  ‘Millmoor,’ Luke said, subsiding into his seat overwhelmed by memories. Silyen barely spared a glance down.

  Not long after, the window filled up with blue, as sky merged with sea. When they next crossed green, it was Galloway, and Scotland lay beneath them. And when blue appeared a second time Silyen murmured, ‘The Firth of Clyde,’ and stirred himself to give the pilot instructions on their true destination.

  ‘That’s an estate,’ replied the man, apprehension plain in his voice despite the crackle and rotor noise. ‘They’re all no-fly, except for authorized approaches.’

  ‘This is authorized.’

  ‘You only changed your mind once we were in the air, how can it—’

  ‘I’m authorizing it now. Eilean Dòchais is a few kilometres east of the Skye Bridge.’

  ‘I’ll need to radio for co-ordinates.’

  Something in the cockpit control panel popped and sizzled. Silyen reeled off a string of numbers then leaned back, evidently over the worst of his airsickness. A metallic scraping on Luke’s other side made him glance down, and he saw in all its hideous glory something he’d not laid eyes on since the Blood Fair, when it had been dripping with what could have been Julian’s viscera: Dog’s glove of knives.

  What if Crovan was at home? They’d be screwed, wouldn’t they? Knives or no knives.

  Silyen had telephoned his mother and asked artless questions about Crovan’s whereabouts. Lady Thalia had sounded distracted, but confirmed that he was dining with Bouda, and would return to Scotland the next day. It had been too late to rouse a helicopter for a night flight, but Silyen had evidently thrown enough Jardine money at the problem that a chopper had been found for them at the crack of dawn. Depending on how early a riser Crovan was, they could have a day, or merely hours.

  ‘There’s the helipad,’ Silyen said.

  And as the chopper spun, Luke saw it: Eilean Dòchais, sitting tight against its own reflection in the glittering waters of Loch nan Deur. It was as beautiful as when he’d first spied it, and almost as terrifying, even though this time he was in the company of a freakishly Skilled Equal and a vengeful madman armed to the teeth and they were both, somehow, on his side.

  ‘Fascinating,’ Silyen said, as they stood on the shore of Loch nan Deur, after leaving the helicopter beyond the estate’s wards. ‘Those glints in the water are Skill, but constrained to a single purpose: to cause pain. Such a clever trick, used for such a petty purpose.’ He wrinkled his nose disapprovingly.

  Dog jumped back as the boat, called by Silyen’s Skill, scraped onto the gravel shore. He plainly knew the water’s properties, too.

  Luke glanced up at the castle windows as they crossed over, hoping for a glimpse of Coira’s face. But the panes were too thickly leaded, the glass too old and clouded to see clearly. Silyen was hanging over the side of the boat as it moved, and Luke wondered if he got boat-sick as well. But it turned out he was studying the lazy swirl and sparkle of Skill in the water. Luke didn’t know whether to smile or despair at how easily distracted the Equal was. Then the boat bumped against the island and Luke wished for distraction himself, to postpone what was coming next.

  Outside the Door of Hours he squared back his shoulders purposefully and knocked. There was no answer. Luke knocked again, louder and longer. They waited.

  His heart was in his throat. What did this mean? Was there nobody in the castle at all? Had Coira got them all away, even the mad and bad ones? Or in Crovan’s absence, had the place sunk into anarchy? Maybe Coira was gone and the remainder had killed one another. He stepped right up to the door and hammered desperately on it with both hands –

  – then staggered over the threshold as it swung open beneath his fists.

  Well, shit.

  He’d been hoping for so many reasons that Coira was inside, but now he had one more reason. If she wasn’t, he’d be stuck here until Crovan came home. And given that he didn’t know Luke had ever left, odds on the man wouldn’t happily show Luke out the door.

  ‘Luke?’ a voice called out from the dim recesses of the entrance hall. It sounded familiar, but altered. Who was it?

  From under the archway that led to the castle’s great central atrium and square staircase shambled a human figure. With it came an unpleasant odour blended from sweat, stale smoke and booze.

  ‘Luke Hadley? You’ve come back. What about the others?’

  Others had got away, too, then. Had Coira gone with them? Luke gestured over his shoulder to Silyen and Dog. They needed to stay outside.

  The shaft of light from the doorway fell onto the advancing figure and Luke tensed, ready for trouble. But he recognized who it was at the same time as his brain processed the voice. Not a nice man, his memory whispered – words he’d written in the journal he’d kept while incarcerated here.

  ‘Devin?’

  Crovan’s steward, whose position nonetheless did not spare him his master’s sadistic attention, was a wreck. He was still in formal wear, but everything that should have been tucked in hung out. He wore no jacket. His hair was plastered to his skull on one side, and stuck up on the other. He
looked like he hadn’t slept since Luke had left, and that the hours he should have spent sleeping had instead been spent drinking.

  ‘Have you all come back?’ Devin slurred, blinking his eyes against the light from the doorway, and peering to see who was stood there. Silyen and Dog were just silhouettes. ‘He’s going to be so angry with you. With all of you. Not with me. It wasn’t my fault. No one’s supposed to be able to leave. But with her they can.’

  He hiccupped disconsolately, and raised a port bottle to his lips.

  ‘Has she gone, too?’ Luke asked urgently. No need to check who that her was.

  Devin’s only answer was a mournful braying that was either laughter or despair.

  ‘Upstairs,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s upstairs. But she’s not coming out. So now you’re back, you can’t leave either.’ He hiccupped again. ‘One less lash for poor old Devin when the master gets home.’

  ‘Coira is upstairs?’ Luke asked again, wanting to be completely sure before he waved Dog and Silyen in.

  ‘Locked herself in the master’s rooms,’ Devin confided. ‘Don’t know how. So disobedient. She’ll get more lashes than poor Devin when the master’s back. Y-y-y-you?’

  The steward stuttered and stumbled backwards, eyes going wide at whatever he’d seen over Luke’s shoulder. The deceptively gentle scrape of steel on steel told Luke what it was.

  ‘Me,’ rasped Dog.

  And Dog reached past with a movement so fast that Luke didn’t know what had happened, until the blood sprayed him full in the face and something plopped wet and stinking at his feet. He cried out in disgust and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. Dog was laughing.

  In the gloom it took Luke’s eyes a moment to adjust. But his other senses told him what had happened. At his feet was what had, until a few moments ago, been Devin. The body gaped like an open purse, slit from throat to groin.

  Luke swallowed down bile.

  ‘What the hell?’ he yelled at Dog. ‘That wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘You’re here,’ Dog growled, ‘for the girl. Silyen’s here – for this king. What did you think – I came for?’

  Luke knew. Revenge.

  ‘When I was a bad Dog,’ the man said, ‘Devin filled my – water bowl. Crovan let him get it – from the loch. Drink that or nothing he said. He got what he deserved.’

  As Luke stood there in horrified silence, trying to imagine what it would be like to drink the acid waters of Loch nan Deur, Silyen simply stepped over the pooling mess and headed deeper into the castle.

  ‘Wait,’ Luke called after him. ‘You can’t just stroll in. We’ve no idea what the situation is. There are nearly fifty prisoners in this place, and they’ve all been locked up for a reason.’

  ‘The situation is: Crovan’s not here. Therefore, the situation is: there’s no problem. Who’ll challenge us? One powerful Skill-worker.’ Silyen pointed to himself. ‘One maniac with an excessive number of knives. And one . . . well, you might want to keep close, Hadley. Now come on. We’ll get this girl first, then I want to see if we can find any trace of the king.’

  The Equal strode into the castle’s central atrium. The wide staircase wound its way around all four sides, up to the higher floors. The place was in an absolute state. Empty bottles and broken glasses littered the floor. Items of furniture had been smashed and one of the great landscape paintings was slashed from side to side. Pieces of antique weaponry had been pulled from the walls – and where were they, Luke wondered warily?

  He knew what this looked like. Every now and then, you’d be invited to a party thrown by kids whose parents had gone off to start their days. There’d usually be an older sibling in their twenties, who the parents had judged sufficiently mature to watch over the younger ones, who were maybe just finishing school. Houses got trashed. Everyone pretended the parties were about celebrating freedom from parental supervision, though you’d often find one of the host kids crying quietly in a corner somewhere.

  The destruction wrought on Crovan’s immaculate castle was gobsmacking. How long had it been since Luke left here? Incredibly, he realized it was only a few days. So much had happened: the journey to London, the Blood Fair and the Skillful clash in Gorregan Square. The drive to Far Carr and everything that had occurred there: renewing the boundary and walking in the dreamscape of his own mind.

  He tried to remember whether or not he had actually seen the king in the castle hallway. He had wanted to, when he’d stood at the Last Door in some kind of trance and looked out. He’d been about to step through when Coira had interrupted him, and then Crovan had caught them and Luke had deduced her secret – that she was his daughter.

  Luke looked back over his shoulder to the entrance hall. Now that they were inside, the Door of Hours would have disappeared, and the Last Door should have become visible, but it was too dim to make anything out.

  ‘What did I just say, Luke?’ Silyen was starting up the stairs two at a time. ‘Keep up.’

  The higher they went, the louder the noise grew. A steady thump-thump-thump from the top floor, and the raucous sound of many men’s voices. People were moving as though stupefied through the upper rooms: the library, and the billiard room where they gathered for champagne o’clock. Mostly the men were Crovan’s ‘guests’ in their country-house tweeds or dress suits, but a few wore the grey tunics of the ‘servants’ from belowstairs. Whatever division had existed between the two groups was evidently suspended.

  Everywhere, the castle was in disarray: food ground into carpets, ornaments smashed or overturned. What the hell had happened here?

  Luke tried to piece it together. It was clear from Devin’s words that Coira had led some of the castle’s prisoners to safety, as she had told Luke she would. Then she had come back, again just as she had said. She had wanted to speak to Crovan – to her father – and to discover from him the secret of her birth.

  Luke imagined that in the first hours after Crovan’s departure, the castle’s residents allowed themselves some licence, just like kids when their parents were gone. So Coira’s freeing of her chosen few might have gone unnoticed. But all it would have taken would be one of those she’d left behind to notice her crossing the loch.

  On her return to the castle, they’d all be clamouring for freedom. Many of them most likely people who should never see the outside of a secure facility. Luke knew that Coira felt as he did, that the punishments endured here violated any standard of civilization. But she couldn’t simply release dangerous criminals into an unsuspecting community. So . . . what? She had taken refuge in Crovan’s private quarters. The door to that was Skillfully warded, but evidently it recognized her blood, just as the Last Door and the moat did.

  So, the banging and thumping above? That would be those still trapped in the castle, trying to break in to her. The dismembered furniture was presumably being used to batter the door down; the missing weapons would be to threaten her when they did. And because forty people couldn’t be attacking one door at the same time, the bottles and cigar ends ground into the carpet were how the rest were passing the time. Maybe they were keeping up their assault round the clock, depriving Coira of sleep until she gave in.

  That sounded like a rational and plausible scenario – but all Luke’s rational thinking went out the window the minute the woman started screaming.

  ‘No! Please,’ came her high panicked voice. ‘I’m begging you. Coira – help me!’

  ‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ bellowed a man’s voice, followed by a heavy thump on a door. ‘If you don’t open up for us, you scrawny bitch, then this one’s gonna pay. We’ll all have her, two at a time. And you know how many of us there are. We’ll make her scream a little louder each time until you stop pretending you can’t hear us.’

  The woman’s wail was hideous, raw and ragged. ‘No! Coira! Please!’ Then it broke off in sobs.

  Luke met Dog’s eyes, and for all the madness in them, Luke saw the same clear understanding of what was about to happen. As one, the
y sprinted for the final turn of the staircase that would take them to the topmost floor –

  – only to fall as something caught their ankles and slammed them down. Luke’s jaw banged a carpeted stair and he felt blood fill his mouth, but that wasn’t why he was furious.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He spat blood from where he’d bitten his tongue, and swore at Silyen as the Equal walked up to them. He’d tripped them up with Skill. ‘She needs help. Now.’

  ‘Get a grip on your “saving everybody” thing, Luke. At least our friend here has a reason for his hair-trigger where rapists are concerned, but you spent months here among these people. You should know better.’

  ‘Know better?’

  The woman upstairs was whimpering now, and there was the sound of ripping fabric.

  ‘Last chance,’ the man called to Coira. ‘There are plenty of us, so you’ll be listening for quite some time. I’d hate you to lose your beauty sleep – not least ’cause when we’re done with this one, and we finally get that door down, you’ll be next. Unless you come out now and take us all off this island.’

  At the threat to Coira, Luke made a dash for the stairs, only for Silyen to grab him. Those skinny arms were stronger than they looked. Bloody unfair Equal strength, Luke thought, his mind boiling with rage as he struggled against the restraint.

  Then Silyen put his mouth close to Luke’s ear and whispered.

  ‘It’s. Not. Real.’

  What? Luke’s chin jerked up. He looked at Dog, whose eyes still burned, but who had cocked his head on one side to listen.

  Silyen clamped a hand over Luke’s mouth as the woman above gave another scream, then began a nauseatingly rhythmic series of sobs and groans and muttered pleading.

  ‘Shhh . . .’ Silyen admonished.

  He removed his hand and beckoned the pair of them to follow. Where the stairs turned into a landing, Silyen pressed Luke back against the wall. He put a finger to his lips, shot Luke a meaningful look, then pointed over his shoulder.

  There was a semi-circle of them gathered around the finely carved door of Crovan’s suite, all men – more than a dozen – plus one woman. Tossed to one side just outside the group was a torn curtain. The woman was not only fully clothed, she was grinning as she uttered the obscene noises. She paused for breath, and to gulp from a bottle she held, and the men covered her silence with crude jeering and noises of encouragement. Several of them were armed with the spears and swords missing from their place in the staircase weaponry displays.