He pointed a finger at Lizzie and opened his mouth twice before any words came out. His hands were shaking and his forehead glistened with sweat. “You are a stranger to our island,” he told her in a quavering voice, “an interloper, a refugee—and a witch to boot! How dare you stand before us and assume such a title? What right have you to declare yourself our sovereign?”
Lizzie smiled malevolently. “A ruler needs to be strong, and I’m the strongest here!” she said, arching her back. “You’re challenging my right to rule, old man. For that, your life is forfeit!”
She stamped her foot three times, muttered something under her breath, and pointed the index finger of her left hand straight at the man, whose face was already contorted with terror.
His hands went to his throat, and I could see his eyes bulging from their sockets. He made no sound, but blood started to ooze from each nostril and dribble down over his mouth before dripping off his chin. Then he fell forward and collapsed, striking his head hard against the flagged floor. He lay there perfectly still.
Lizzie had killed him stone dead.
CHAPTER XVIII
A Lost Spirit
THE gray-haired woman got to her feet and, with a cry of anguish, rushed forward to help her husband. But she never reached his body.
Lizzie made a sign in the air and chanted the words of a spell. The woman fell to her knees, her hands fluttering in front of her face as if warding off something terrifying.
I was aware of another commotion at the back of the room, where the prisoners had been seated. Someone was trying to force her way toward us but was being restrained by the yeomen. It looked like Adriana. What was wrong with her? If she wasn’t careful she’d be returned to the cells.
But Lizzie wasn’t finished yet. This was a clear demonstration of her power, its aim to cow her audience so that none would ever dare oppose her again. She stamped her foot three times and, in a loud, imperious voice, uttered more words of enchantment in the Old Tongue. I was still learning that language, a relative novice, and they were chanted so quickly that I could neither catch nor understand them. But the consequences were immediate and terrifying.
All the torches in the room flickered and died down, and we were plunged into almost total darkness. Wails of fear went up from the gathering. Then the huge figure of a man began to form in the air above Lizzie. It looked like a trapped spirit summoned from limbo. At first I thought she had summoned Bill Arkwright again, but as the apparition took shape, I saw that it was the ghost of the man that Lizzie had just killed. Around him swirled the gloomy gray mists of limbo.
“I’m lost!” the spirit cried. “Where am I? What’s happened to me?”
“You’re dead and finished with this world for good,” Lizzie snapped. “What happens to you now depends upon me. I can keep you trapped in that mist forever, or I can let you go free.”
“Go? Go where?” asked the spirit.
“Either to the light or to the dark, whichever your life on this earth has fitted you for. What’s your name? What did you do upon this world while you lived and breathed?”
“I’m the chief miller at Peel, a hardworking man. My name is Patrick Lonan, and I’m a member of the Tynwald. . . .”
No wonder Adriana had needed to be restrained by the yeomen. Lizzie had just killed her father.
The witch gave a low, cruel laugh. “You were a member of the Tynwald. Now you’re just a lost spirit. You serve me, and you’ll do my bidding. Return into the mist and await my call!”
The ghost of Patrick Lonan gave a wail of fear and began to fade. The torches flared into life once more, revealing the terrified faces of the guests. Many were on their feet, about to try and leave the hall. The yeomen looked just as scared, in no state to detain any who tried to flee. But Lizzie immediately took control of the situation.
“Be seated!” she commanded. “All of you. Do it now or join the dead miller!”
Within seconds they had taken their places again. I looked at the table at the back but could see no sign of Adriana. The woman, whom I took to be her mother, was still on her knees, trying to fend off some unseen attacker. Her whole face was twitching, her body starting to convulse. She was muttering gibberish, driven to the edge of insanity by Lizzie’s magic.
I looked at Daniel Stanton. He was just as terror stricken as the rest of the gathering, clearly in no position to make an attempt on Lizzie’s life.
“You’ve seen what I can do,” the witch cried out. “Death awaits those who oppose me—along with fear and suffering beyond the grave. I will allow the Tynwald to meet one last time in order to dismiss the ruling council and declare me ruler of this island. Get ye gone! All of you! Any who wish to serve me may return to the keep at the same time tomorrow night, and I will receive your obeisance then.”
The hall emptied quickly, and I saw that Lizzie had a triumphant look on her face. She signaled to two of the guards and pointed to the miller’s wife.
“Take her home—to die!” she commanded. “Let her be an example of what happens to those who displease me.”
They dragged Adriana’s mother away, still wailing with distress.
“Out of my sight, you two!” she said, pointing to me and Alice. “Go back to the tower. I want to talk to my sene-schal in private.”
I thought briefly about simply following the other guests out of the great hall and over the moat. But then we’d never manage to get back into the keep to rescue the Spook. And anyway, I doubted whether Lizzie would allow it—her power over me was still strong. So I obediently followed Alice across the courtyard to the tower. We went up the stairs and into my room and sat together on the window seat. Outside it was very dark and neither the moon nor the stars were visible; just a few lanterns flickered on the distant boundary wall.
“That was Adriana’s father that Lizzie killed,” I murmured.
Alice nodded. “And now Adriana will have been taken down to the dungeons to join Old Gregory. Didn’t take Lizzie long to start filling up those cells again, did it? We can’t let her just murder anybody she wants. We’ve got to do something, Tom.”
“If we attack her, she could strike us stone dead with one of her spells. You saw what she did to the miller. She can force me to do things against my will—even smash the blood jar. In a few days she may be in control of this island, and then she’ll think about taking her revenge on the Spook. We’ve got to get him out of that cell before she starts to really hurt him. It’s risky, but the only way out of this keep is through the buggane’s tunnels.”
My words were brave, but inside I shivered at the mere thought of the buggane. To come face to face with the demon in its own domain would surely mean death.
“You’re right, Tom, but we’ll have to choose a time when she’s not watching us. Soon as Lizzie finds out we’re gone, she’ll send it after us. Right now she’s busy giving orders to her new seneschal, consolidating her power here. And all the guards are on duty at the moment—they won’t be in the guard room! Now, right now, is the time to make a move!” she cried.
Alice was right. We had to strike—and now, when Lizzie would least expect it. If she caught us, she would show no mercy. Trying not to think of the risk of what we were attempting, I led Alice up to the study, where Lord Barrule had studied and practiced animism. I opened the door and retrieved both the Spook’s staff and mine. As we turned to go, Alice picked up the shaman’s notebook.
“What do you want that for, Alice?” I asked with a frown, eager to get away before Lizzie returned.
“Who knows what we might learn, Tom? It might come in useful. Besides, if we take it, then Lizzie can’t get her hands on it.”
I nodded—that was true enough. We hurried down through the throne room and descended the steps toward the dungeons. We passed safely through the guard room and, taking a lantern from a hook, headed along the damp narrow passageway.
There were a lot of cells, but we didn’t need to check each one because the empty ones had their d
oors open. At last we came to two that were locked. I used my key and opened the first one to find Adriana sitting on the floor in the corner, her head in her hands. When she saw that it was us, she jumped up and rushed over.
“What happened to my mother?” she asked, her eyes full of tears.
“They took her home,” I said. “I’m really sorry, Adriana, about your father—”
“She killed him then? They dragged me out before I could be sure what had happened.” She looked at me, her dark eyes sorrowful.
“Yes, she killed him,” I admitted, bowing my head. I didn’t tell her about Lizzie summoning his spirit from limbo; it would only have added to her pain.
“My mother will find it hard to live without him,” she said, beginning to sob. “Father was always so outspoken.”
“He was brave,” I said, “but he couldn’t have known what he was up against—how powerful Lizzie really is.”
“We’re going to try and escape from the keep down the tunnels,” Alice said, patting Adriana’s shoulder sympathetically. “It’ll be dangerous, but it’s better than staying here.”
We left her cell, and I inserted my key into the lock of the next one. It was stiff, and for a few moments I struggled to turn the key. Eventually it yielded and I opened the door. Alice held up the lantern and we peered inside.
I saw the earthen wall and the tunnel in it. Then something moved. My heart lurched, and I stepped back nervously. At first I thought it was the buggane, but then the Spook shuffled toward us, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the glare of the light. He’d been in the darkness for a long time.
“Well, lad, you’re a sight for sore eyes and no mistake.”
I smiled and handed him his staff. “I’ve lots of things to tell you, but it’ll have to wait till later. The guards could come looking for us at any moment. We’re going to try and escape down the buggane’s tunnels. It’s either that or back up the stairs to face Lizzie. And she controls the yeomen now.”
The Spook nodded. “Then we’ve little choice. We don’t know where the tunnels lead, so we might as well try up here,” he said, pointing back to the dark entrance in the earth wall of his own cell.
I suddenly wondered why he hadn’t already made his escape down that tunnel. Locked in my cell earlier, I’d made the decision not to risk it. But I was still an apprentice and he was the Spook; he must have realized that it would be his only chance to escape before being tortured and killed. Had he lacked the strength and courage to face the tunnel alone? I had little time to dwell on that thought before Alice spoke again.
“We do know where one of the tunnels leads,” she said. “The one from the long room where the dogs fought—it leads to that hollow tree.”
“But it’s surrounded by a bone yard, Alice,” I reminded her.
“It’s very dangerous, but I might be able to find Lizzie’s secret path out. I’m prepared to try.”
“Make a mistake and you’d be crushed to death in seconds, girl,” the Spook said, shaking his head.
“Ain’t any better option,” Alice retorted. “Otherwise we’ll be traveling blind through the buggane’s tunnels.”
The Spook sighed, then nodded his agreement. “Right, you lead the way then.”
We left his cell and followed the passageway along. Soon it widened out and there were dry stone flags under our feet. We helped ourselves to more wall lanterns; we’d need as much light as possible in the tunnel. As we approached the long room, we heard loud barks. The stench of death and animal feces was overpowering. We saw that the three wolfhounds were still locked in their cages and Lord Barrule’s rotting body lay where it had fallen next to the throne.
“We should let the dogs out,” I said. “They haven’t been fed. It might be days before anybody bothers to do anything about them.”
“Take care, lad,” the Spook warned me. “They’ve been cruelly treated—who knows how they’ll react?”
Warily, we released them. But the dogs neither attacked us nor fought one another. A couple bounded out of the room immediately, but most just wandered about forlornly. Claw, Blood, and Bone, however, were pleased to see me. It was good to pat them again and see their tales wagging with excitement; their joy brought a lump to my throat. They were starving and dirty, and I felt angry at the way they’d been treated, but at least the shaman’s power over them was broken and they were their old selves again. When we entered the tunnel at the end of the room, they followed us in.
I took the lead, Alice at my heels, and the Spook followed behind Adriana in case we were attacked from the rear. The tunnel was just earth, with no wooden supports like a mine, and the thought of that weight of soil above us was scary. We could easily be buried alive down here; segments of tunnel must collapse all the time. There were roots visible, too. Sometimes they were twisted like snakes, and I had to keep telling myself that they weren’t moving.
The lanterns were very much more effective than the candle stub we’d used the first time I came down here with Alice and Lizzie, and it wasn’t long before we saw the first of the bones. They weren’t lying in large piles, as in the lair of a bone witch, but we never went more than twenty yards without catching a glimpse of some fragment of a human skeleton. Sometimes it was a skull half buried in the side wall of the tunnel, or a fragment of a leg or arm bone, or just a few fingers or toes. However, I did not sense any lingering spirits here. They were just remains. I paused beside an almost intact human foot; only the little toe was missing. To the left of it was a skull. A tree root had twisted its way in through the left eye socket and emerged from the right before continuing down into the soil.
“Why are there so many bones down here?” I called back to the Spook. “Do they belong to prisoners who tried to escape from the cells?”
“A few maybe,” he replied. “But the buggane regurgitates some of the bones it’s swallowed after feeding.”
I shuddered, realizing that the foot and the skull had spent time in the buggane’s stomach.
For about five minutes we made good progress, but then we encountered a problem. There were thick tree roots ahead of us, completely blocking the main tunnel. Another tunnel went off at an angle, heading downward. It was new and freshly dug. I didn’t like the look of it one bit.
CHAPTER XIX
The Grim Cache
“THIS is the buggane’s doing,” I said. “What now?”
“To reach the hollow tree we need to get past those roots somehow,” Alice replied.
“We could dig round it with our staffs, but it’ll take ages. I know a better way,” I said, turning to look past Alice and Adriana. “There are roots blocking our way!” I shouted to the Spook. “Reverse back down the tunnel a bit. We need to give the dogs room to work. Claw! Blood! Bone!”
The dogs came squeezing past us eagerly as the others retreated. I dug at the earth beside the roots with my hands and pointed ahead. Soon the three wolfhounds were burrowing away enthusiastically, throwing earth backward with their paws. In fact, we got two tunnels instead of one, because Claw worked to the left while Blood and Bone dug their own tunnel to the right.
The latter was the larger excavation, and the Spook and I widened it with the blades of our staffs until we could squeeze through.
At last we were moving again. I began to feel optimistic about escaping from the hollow tree. It was dangerous, but if anyone could find the secret way through the bone yard it was Alice.
But soon we encountered another problem, this one much worse than before. We found the passage ahead completely blocked with hard-packed earth. Once again a new tunnel had been excavated by the buggane, one that headed sharply downhill.
The Spook crawled forward to join me, shaking his head. “We could try digging again, but the whole tunnel might cave in behind,” he said. “I don’t like it, lad. It’s almost as if we’re being herded like sheep. Forced downward to where someone wants us to be.”
“The buggane?” I asked.
“Maybe, but
it could be acting for Lizzie. By now she’ll probably know that we’ve escaped the tower. We either retreat the way we came or go down there,” he said, pointing toward the new tunnel.
“If we go back, they’ll be waiting. This time Lizzie will put us all in the dungeons,” I said.
The Spook shrugged. “Then we must go on. I’ll take the lead now, lad—who knows what we’re about to face?” And with those words he set off, crawling along the tunnel.
The descent got steeper and I was growing increasingly uneasy. I sensed danger ahead.
Then the passage began to widen, and the Spook got to his feet, lifting the lantern. Moments later, we saw a vast space ahead, the walls so distant that the light couldn’t reach them. We were at the entrance to a huge cavern.
Even the dogs were silent. They stayed behind us, unwilling to venture in any farther and explore. Perhaps they felt what we did: a sense of awe, a feeling that we faced something totally new and beyond our experience.
“I didn’t expect this,” said the Spook, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “I think I know what this place is. I thought it was just a myth—a story. But it’s real. . . .”
“What’s real?” I asked. “What is it?”
But the Spook just muttered something to himself and didn’t answer my question.
“This ain’t been done by the buggane,” said Alice. “Take ten lifetimes to make a burrow this big, even if its claws could dig through rock.”
“This was here already, and the buggane chanced upon it,” my master said.
“Or maybe it knew about it,” said Adriana, emerging from the dark tunnel. “Maybe it deliberately chose to build its labyrinth here because it knew about this cavern.”
“But what would it want something so big for?” I asked, thinking aloud.
“Well, as I’ve already told you, lad,” said the Spook, “a buggane takes the animus, the life force of a human, and stores it at the center of its labyrinth. It was working with the shaman, so it needed lots of space. But this is immense—far beyond what it should need.”
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