Sixty-One Nails cotf-1

by Mike Shevdon

"I was trying to. You were more interested in the torch." The light was growing over the gantry and starting to illuminate the vaulted ceiling.

  "There's no time. In here." Blackbird dragged me into one of the alcoves created by the vaulting. The alcove was shallow and we crammed into the limited shadows created by the supporting pillar.

  The light grew brighter and then spilled out over the water. I pressed in alongside Blackbird.

  I leaned forward. There were two figures standing on the gantry. One of them was a blank silhouette against the dark, a wraithkin like me. I pressed myself in again.

  "How many?" Blackbird whispered against my chest.

  "There are two, a wraithkin and one other. The other looks normal enough."

  "Can you see what they're doing?"

  I leaned forward again slowly. Blackbird tugged at my sleeve. "Don't let them see you."

  "I know. I won't."

  I leaned out again to peak around the pillar. The two were still on the gantry with the normal-looking one making grand gestures towards the central island and the anvil. The conversation was quite animated, but we were too far away to overhear them.

  "They're arguing."

  "What about?"

  "I don't know."

  "Let me see." She leaned forward across me while I leaned back against the wall.

  "They're coming down."

  "Shit! Can we hide?"

  "Not with magic. Your first use of it would give us away like a beacon."

  "Then let's run for it."

  "We'd never make it. If it comes to it, jump into the water and let the flow carry you downstream to the weir. Try and stay underwater for as long as you can."

  "I can't swim."

  "What?"

  "I never learned."

  She pulled back and the glint from her eyes in the dark told me she was looking at me. "Well it's never too late to start. Just try not to drown and let the water carry you."

  "Can we fight them?"

  "Can you? I can't. At least one of them is wraithkin and that doesn't bode well for the other."

  "I don't know. What do I have to do?"

  "If you don't know, it's too late to start teaching you now."

  "I thought you said it was never–"

  She pressed her free hand against my mouth, silencing me. As soon as she did I could hear the voices.

  "…of inspection. We were simply asked to check it was intact." The first voice was bold and arrogant.

  "Yes, and it is." The second voice dwelled on esses in a way that was hauntingly familiar.

  "Well now we have seen it, can we go?"

  "It was your choice, Raffmir, to come in your true form." The words were slow and slurred as if the speaker couldn't form the words properly.

  "And yours, sister, to wear that sham you call a body."

  "It serves a purpose, for now. I travel in my own form when the need arises."

  I knew that second voice now. It had stood outside my bedroom door and called me brother.

  As the wraithkin moved towards us, the shadows shrank and we were forced into the narrow space next to the pillar. I slid around to face the corner and Blackbird edged into the narrow space between me and the wall.

  The wraithkin's back came into view and I pressed into Blackbird. Glancing sideways, I could clearly see the nimbus around his hand where his sleeve drew back as he gestured, only emptiness within. He looked like a hole in the world.

  "Are you satisfied now, sister? Can we go?"

  "The lock is untouched, the seals unbroken. And yet I sense a presence."

  Blackbird's hand sought mine, her fingers squeezing readying me to jump into the water. Between us, the stone pendant around my neck pulsed into warmth. It found a rhythm, matching my heartbeat, each beat stronger than the last. My attention was split between Blackbird's pressure on my hand, the stone pulsing at my breastbone and the dark figure with his back to me.

  Raffmir stepped backwards towards us, facing across the water to the anvil. "You can see it is undisturbed. Your senses are distorted by the barrier, my sister. Let us return and relate what we have found."

  "It smells."

  "Of course it smells. It's a sewer. What did you expect?" He gestured across to the island and the anvil, throwing his hands wide and narrowly missing my arm. "I'm surprised you can sense anything close to that. It's giving me a headache."

  "The barrier persists."

  "Not for much longer."

  "You are sure it is failing?"

  "Certain of it. There is a worm at the heart of the ritual and each time they repeat it the barrier becomes weaker. Once it fails we shall be free to come and go as we please."

  "Then we shall feed." The glee in her voice was chilling.

  I knew what she meant when she said feed. I remembered the chilling sounds from my back garden, the screams of "Get it off me!" before they were choked off.

  "Come, let us go. I can feel this world giving me wrinkles."

  "You are vain, Raffmir."

  "Just because you don't get wrinkles, it doesn't mean the rest of us are vain".

  "I wasn't talking about the others."

  Raffmir stepped back along the ledge and retreated from us, the shadows lengthening. I let out a breath I had not realised I had been holding. We stayed pressed into the alcove while the source of the light climbed back onto the gantry.

  We could no longer hear what was being said over the roaring water and the light finally faded down the tunnel. The darkness reasserted itself and was then replaced by the faintest luminescence from the brickwork. They were leaving.

  Blackbird made to move out of the shadows, but I squeezed her hand hard and she stopped.

  "What?"

  "Can't you feel it?"

  "What?"

  "She's waiting up there."

  "What for?"

  "Us."

  I leaned sideways very gently to peer around the pillar. The light was vanishing over the gantry, but in the shadow that remained there was a dark shape outlined. I eased back.

  "She's on the gantry."

  We stayed where we were and the light grew again. He was coming back. I wondered what it was I was sensing and whether she sensed it too. Should we throw ourselves in the water now, while they were furthest away, or wait and see what happened? I didn't fancy my chances in that dark water, not while there was a choice.

  Light flickered across the vaulted ceiling and rolled out over the pool again as he joined her. I took a chance and looked around the pillar. He was addressing her back, but she was leaning on the rail over the gantry, as if she was listening for something.

  "Does she know we're here?" Blackbird whispered close to my ear.

  "I don't know. She knows something's here. Maybe she's spotted my torch."

  "Where is it?"

  "It fell in the water next to the waterfall. It was switched on. She may be able to see it from the gantry."

  "Oh, Rabbit. If they come back down the ladder, we're going for the water."

  "Can they catch us?"

  "Raffmir may be able to reach us with gallowfyre. If he can, we're lost."

  We stayed still, the strange shifting light exaggerated by the reflections from the roiling water. The warm heartbeat of the stone against my breastbone contrasted with the cold seeping from the bricks. The source of the light didn't move, but I began to wonder if that shambling figure wasn't using the light to climb back down the ladder and explore the recesses, searching for the source of her unease.

  Blackbird had said that just a touch of the spreading rot would be enough. How would we see it spreading over the walls and roof in the shadows? Was it running across the bricks, even now? I sniffed the air, trying to detect the sharp, fetid odour that accompanied the darkspore. Against the background smell of the sewer, it was well masked. The prospect of the dark flows beneath us were more appealing by the second.

  Finally I could stand it no more and I leaned out again to peek around the pillar. The t
wo figures were still on the gantry. Then Raffmir stood and stretched, and the other figure pushed back from the rail and ambled past him, the walk not quite human, as if having a jointed limbed body was awkward and unfamiliar.

  I watched as the light faded under the arched ceiling. Perhaps, finally, they had given up and gone.

  "I think they've left."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I don't know. The stone's still pulsing."

  "What stone?"

  "The one Megan gave me. It's around my neck."

  Blackbird pulled her hand from mine and the stone flared with heat and then slowly cooled.

  "It's not the wraithkin that's doing that, it's me."

  I looked down at her, still tucked into the corner in front of me, "I don't understand."

  She lifted her chin and there was something in her eyes, even in the darkness. It was a faint inner glow, like a green ember dying with a core of inner heat. Her eyes held something I didn't recognise, defiance maybe.

  "What?" I asked her.

  "We need to go, while we have the chance."

  She was avoiding my question. What did it mean when the stone reacted like that? Next time I saw Megan, I would ask her. I leaned out again, searching for any sign of them. "I think they've really gone this time."

  "Can you feel her?"

  I listened to the inner sense. "I think she's gone. Come on, we'll go downstream."

  "We have to get over to the other side. The exit is over there and there are no crossings further down."

  "I am not going up on that gantry."

  "I thought you said they'd gone?"

  "Yes, but for how long?"

  "Fine, then you'll have to jump across like me. It's not that hard."

  "I can't get any nearer to the anvil. Can't you feel it? It's like sitting under a thunder cloud."

  "You tell me then." Exasperation rang in her tone. "How are you going to get to the other ledge?"

  "Perhaps I could climb across the weir, further down?"

  "Perhaps you could fall in the water and demonstrate your swimming skills?"

  I looked again at where the anvil sat humming in the dark. It had the same quality as the gates at Australia House, only much, much worse. There was a brooding malevolence about it and I knew if I went near it, spite would leap across the air and strike me down. I would not be able to cross via the island, even if I could make the leap.

  "I'll cross at the gantry. Meet me on the other side."

  "Before we go, we should take a quick look at the door in the wall."

  I hesitated, but it was what we had come for. "Can I use your torch?"

  "I'll shine it for you, butterfingers." I could hear the smile in her voice in the darkness.

  We edged back along the ledge to where the dark rectangle showed in the brickwork. It was like an iron safe, set into the wall. The frame had rusted where the damp of the brickwork had leached at it, but the door itself was solid black iron. There was a small square keyhole in the centre.

  "It looks pretty solid, doesn't it?" I commented to Blackbird.

  "She said it was sealed and that the seals were intact. I wonder what she meant?"

  The door was a mere echo of the malevolence of the anvil. Nevertheless, I didn't fancy touching it. "What do you think is inside?"

  "Whatever it is, no Fey was meant to reach it."

  There was no handle and no other hole I could see. If the square hole were a keyhole, I couldn't see how it turned.

  "We should go," I insisted, "before they change their minds and come back for another look.

  "I agree. Go and check the gantry is clear. I'll wait for you here and then jump across."

  "Why can't you check the gantry?"

  "You're the one who insists on using it. I prefer to use the island."

  I looked towards the island and then the gantry, both obscure in the dark.

  "Can I borrow your torch?"

  "What, and lose the only light we have between us? I think it would be better if I looked after it, don't you?"

  "I can make light."

  "Yes, and that will bring back Raffmir and his sister back faster than anything else. Just get on with it, before they come back."

  Reluctantly I sidled my way around to the gantry and then felt my way onto the slimy ladder. I climbed it looking upwards unable to tell whether anything lurked in the shadows above, waiting for me to poke my head over. Thankfully nothing was.

  I crossed the gantry carefully, as swiftly as I could, and lowered myself down the ladder on the other side. My descent was more elegant this time and I soon joined the dimly lit figure of Blackbird who had skipped lightly and lithely across the gaps below, belying her pensioner's appearance.

  I joined her in the ring of torchlight and we made our way back along the ledge downstream. Once we were clear of the anvil hall the noise of the water diminished.

  "What did Raffmir mean about the barrier?" I asked Blackbird as she shifted our remaining torch between illuminating the path forward and making sure I didn't step on something slippery.

  "I told you that the Untainted live in a world apart and they can cross into our world. You've seen that they can take over the body of someone gifted who is newly dead and also that they can also cross like Raffmir, as themselves. There was a time when they could only cross at certain times of the year, near the equinoxes or at a solstice, the times when things are balanced."

  "And now they cross all the time?"

  "Not all the time, but their crossings have become more frequent and over a longer period."

  "He said the barrier was weakening," I reminded her.

  "You know, it's strange. Kareesh taught me about the Feyre and about Fey history. It's not a written record like human history; it's wound up in stories of great deeds and terrible disasters the Feyre tell to their children and their grandchildren. She never mentioned a barrier against the Untainted, though. You'd think she would have done."

  "A barrier would make sense. The Seventh Court take themselves off to their other world and the rest of the Feyre bolt the door after them."

  "So where are the tales of this deed?" she asked. "Where are the names of those powerful enough to seal the gap between the worlds? It must have taken the combined efforts of more than one court, perhaps even all of them, to create a barrier that would withstand the Seventh Court. You'd think they would be proud of such an achievement."

  She held the torch steady for me while I edged past the weir.

  "Maybe it wasn't the Feyre that did it," I suggested. "You said hazel and iron were both symbolic for the Feyre. Maybe the Quit Rents Ceremony has something to do with it? Maybe it was humanity that sealed the barrier against the Seventh Court?"

  "No, that's a human tradition. Humanity doesn't have any magic of its own, unless…"

  "What?"

  "They wouldn't have, would they?

  "Wouldn't what?"

  "What if the Six Courts cheated?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What do the Six Courts have that the Seventh doesn't? What's the difference between them?"

  "Humanity, I guess. The Seventh Court doesn't have anything to do with humans."

  "Precisely!"

  We reached the stairway up to the access door and began climbing the steps up to the surface. We emerged into daylight and walked down to the pool in the open courtyard so we could wash our hands. I dipped them into the chilly water and scrubbed them together to remove the slimy residue. A curious goldfish came to investigate the cloudy water, and then flicked its tail and vanished as soon as it came near the discoloured water from my hands.

  "So the Six Courts have humans and the Seventh doesn't. So what?"

  "The Six Courts knew any barrier made by them could eventually be undermined by the Seventh. A barrier made with Fey magic could be broken with Fey magic."

  "So they got their humans to do it?"

  "Perhaps initially, yes. They made the barrier, symbolised by hazel and ir
on and sealed it in an annual rite so it would be continually reinforced. Then they got humanity to carry out the ritual for them, so none of the Courts could break it."

  "That works for the Feyre, but why would humanity take on such a duty? From their point of view, one lot of Feyre are as bad as another. Why would they take sides? Better to let them all kill each other."

  "Hmm, you're right. What's in it for them? Still, if the barrier fails then we're all in trouble. You heard Raffmir's sister. Once the barrier comes down she and her friends intend to feed and I'm guessing it won't just be other Feyre they're preying on."

  "Well, for the moment we have the advantage that we know what they're up to."

  "That's just it, though. We don't, do we? All we know is that Raffmir said there is a worm at the heart of the ritual and the barrier will fail because of it. If the ritual is the Quit Rents Ceremony then what's wrong with it? You said they're still doing it, even after all this time. So where's the worm?"

  "We have to speak to the Queen's Remembrancer. Maybe he will know what's wrong with it?" I glanced at my watch. "It's gone two o'clock. We could go back and talk to the nice receptionist. She was going to check the dates of the ceremony, so maybe we can turn that into an introduction?"

  I shook the remaining water from my hands and Blackbird and I wound our way back through the alleys and courtyards to the Strand and the Royal Courts of Justice.

  I was more confident about approaching the security station this time, now that I had managed to maintain my glamour for a while. Blackbird was right, after a time you got used to it and didn't give it a thought. I emptied my pockets into the trays for the scanner and went through the metal detectors.

  "Let me handle this," I suggested to Blackbird.

  She gave me a sceptical look, but conceded. I moved up to the reception desk where the same lady was typing at her computer. She looked up as I approached the desk.

  "Hi, honey, did you want me to find out those dates for you now?"

  "Actually, I was wondering whether it would be possible to have a chat with the Queen's Remembrancer."

  "You want to make an appointment?" She reached for the telephone.

  "Well, we were really just hoping for a quick word, if he or she is available."

  "He's usually quite booked up, I'm afraid. The Remembrancer is only a ceremonial role and his other duties take up most of his time. Would you like me to talk to his clerk and see if he can slot you in later in the week?"