Next to the structure stood a large block of stone with a strange curved depression in its top. I had seen one before in the village of Topley, close to the farm where I was born. They hadn’t used that stone for more than a hundred years, but nobody had forgotten its purpose. It was an execution block. The victim rested his head on the stone before the executioner chopped it off.
Thin Shaun dumped me on my feet, and I stood there, swaying. A hand gripped my arm to steady me, and I looked into the eyes of the witch. “Say hello to your new friend!” she mocked. “You are both in for a nasty surprise.”
In her other hand she held the collar of a huge goat. In front of its horns, a bronze crown had been lashed to its head with barbed wire, which was spattered with the creature’s blood.
“Meet King Puck!” Scarabek continued. “You two are going to share the platform, and the madness and pain that accompany that honor. Before this night is done, we will summon Pan.”
The goat was led onto the wooden boards and tethered by silver chains bound tightly about its hind legs and fastened to iron rings. That way the animal was confined and could be raised aloft. I was pushed down onto the platform, forced to kneel beside the goat, and blindfolded, my hands still tied behind my back. The wooden planks began to creak and groan as, using a system of ropes and pulleys, four men began to haul us slowly upward. Once the platform had reached the top of its wooden shaft, they lashed the ropes into position so as to keep us there.
The goat began to bleat and struggle, but it couldn’t free itself. I sat up and somehow wriggled my head and shoulders to dislodge the blindfold. I took stock of my surroundings. As far as I could see, no guards had been left to keep an eye on me. I gazed down on the cobbled marketplace and the surrounding rooftops. In the distance, I could just about make out the bridge across the river. The spook in me began to assess my chances of escaping.
And darkness was falling rapidly now. Apart from the mages and their supporters, the town seemed deserted. No doubt the people were all hiding behind locked and barred doors. Below, I heard the chanting begin, and a chill suddenly ran up and down my spine.
The mages had begun the summoning.
The initial chants seemed to have no effect, but I noticed that the breeze first died down, then faded away altogether, and the air became very still. It seemed unnaturally warm, too, almost like a balmy midsummer’s night.
By now the mages had set out a ring of candles on the cobbles around the base of the hollow wooden tower—I counted thirteen. Then they formed a line and circled them slowly in a widdershins direction, their chants gradually becoming louder. The goat, which had been tugging against its chains, bleating desperately, now became quiet and still—so much so that it could have been a statue. But then, after about ten minutes, I noticed that its whole body was quivering. Louder and louder the voices surged, to climax in a shrill scream from the thirteen throats below.
At that point the goat shuddered and emptied its bowels; the slimy mess spread across the wooden boards, some of it dripping down onto the cobbles below. The stink almost made me vomit, and I eased myself right to the edge, grateful that the brown tide had halted just short of me.
When I looked down again, the mages were heading off. I realized that it was impossible to climb down the high wooden tower with my hands bound, so it seemed sensible to conserve my energy. I leaned back against a broad wooden post, drew up my knees, and tried to drift off to sleep. But in vain. Under the influence of the poisoned gruel, I’d spent most of the previous two days unconscious, and now I felt wide awake.
So it was that I endured a long, miserable night with the goat on that high platform, trying desperately to think of some way to escape. But I found it hard to focus—my mind kept returning to the same questions. What had happened to my master after we’d escaped from the castle? Had he managed to avoid capture? But uppermost in my mind was my anguish at the loss of Alice. Those thoughts circled in my head endlessly, but the one emotion absent was fear. My own death waited no more than a couple of days in the future, and yet for some reason I wasn’t the slightest bit afraid.
Fear came just before dawn, in the faint light of the fading moon.
I suddenly noticed that the goat was staring at me intently. Our eyes met, and for a moment the world began to spin. The goat’s face was changing as I watched, stretching and twisting impossibly.
Now I was afraid. Was this transformation taking place because Pan was entering its body? I’d half hoped that the rituals hadn’t worked, but now, with a shudder, I realized that the mages might well have been successful. I could end up sharing a platform with an Old God renowned for bringing fear and madness to those he came close to.
Suddenly the goat gave a loud bleat, and my moment of terror passed. A cold wind was rising now, blowing in from the northeast, and I began to shiver.
At dawn the mages returned to the square and lowered the platform to the ground. I was dragged off onto the cobbles, while, thankfully, someone scrubbed the goat’s filth off the wooden boards. My hands were untied, and a bowl of hot soup and two slices of thick bread were thrust at me.
“Don’t want you dying on us too soon!” one of the mages said maliciously.
I ate ravenously while the goat was also fed and watered. Surrounded by dozens of watchful eyes, I had no chance of escape. When the empty bowl was taken from me, the mages moved back to allow a huge, shaven-headed man to step forward and confront me. I recognized him immediately.
“Bow your head, boy!” a voice hissed in my ear. “This is Magister Doolan.”
When I hesitated, my head was seized roughly from behind and forced down. As soon as I was able to straighten my neck again, I looked up into the face of the most powerful of the goat mages, the one they called the Bantry Butcher. When his eyes met mine, I saw that they were indeed the eyes of a fanatic: They gleamed with certainty. Here was a man with an inflexible mind who would do anything to further his cause.
“You are here to suffer, boy,” he said, raising his voice so that the assembled mages could hear his every word. “Your suffering is our gift to Scarabek, in thanks for her generosity in giving her life for our cause. The life of a spook’s apprentice should be a most welcome addition to our sacrifices. It will also serve as a lesson to any who might think to oppose us.”
He pointed to the executioner’s block and smiled coldly; then my hands were tied once more and I was hoisted aloft.
Within the hour the triangular patch of cobbles was full of stalls. Cattle were driven through the streets to holding pens. As the day progressed, people gradually became more boisterous, sitting in doorways or lounging against walls, tankards of ale in their hands. This was the first day of the three-day fair, and the inhabitants of Killorglin—along with those who had traveled many miles to be here—were starting to enjoy the festivities.
By the time the sun set behind the houses, the marketplace was empty again. The platform was lowered, and I was dragged off onto the cobbled area. Magister Doolan was waiting with his huge double-bladed ax. Now he was dressed in black like an executioner, with leather gloves and a long leather butcher’s apron. But there were leather straps crisscrossing his body: These held knives and other metal implements, and I was reminded of Grimalkin, the witch assassin, who carried her weapons in a similar manner. He turned and looked me up and down as if estimating the size of coffin I’d need, and then gave me an evil grin.
For a terrifying moment I thought I was going to be executed there and then. But I was mistaken. There was no sign of the witch, but standing next to the executioner was Cormac, the mage whom we had interrogated. It seemed that the moment of his death had now arrived. The candles were lit, but the mages were gathered around the execution stone.
Cormac knelt and placed his neck in the hollow of the stone. Below his head a metal bucket waited. Someone brought the goat to stand beside the bucket. To my surprise, it thrust out its tongue and licked the mage’s left cheek three times, then bleated softly
. At that, the other mages nodded and smiled. They seemed to be congratulating themselves. Apparently the ritual was going well.
Doolan opened the collar of Cormac’s shirt so as to expose his neck. Then he raised the double-bladed ax. One of the watching mages started to blow into a small musical instrument. It consisted of five thin metal cylinders bound into a row. The sound was thin and reedlike, and it reminded me of the wind sighing through the rushes at a lake edge. The sound was melancholic—it was filled with the sadness of loss and the inevitability of death.
The mages began to chant in unison, a singsong lament. All at once both the voices and the pipes became silent, and I saw the ax come down in a fast arc. I closed my eyes and heard the metal blade strike stone; then something fell heavily into the bucket. When I looked again, Doolan was holding Cormac’s head by its hair and shaking it over the goat so that the severed neck sprayed it with drops of blood. Soon the goat—presumably under some dark magic spell—was greedily lapping the blood of the dead man from the bucket.
Five minutes later, they were ready to haul the platform up again. They didn’t bother to feed me this time. I wasn’t hungry anyway; I felt sickened by what I’d witnessed. However, they did hold a cup of water to my lips, and I managed four or five gulps.
Aloft once more, I watched the mages. The procedure was exactly the same as on the previous night. Round and round the candles they went, against the clock. This time, when the chants reached a shrill climax, the goat merely turned its head and looked straight at me.
Can a goat smirk? All I can say is that it seemed to be mocking me, and a chill went right down my spine. I was now certain that the ritual was working. At any moment Pan would enter the body of the goat, and I would be sitting on this small platform next to him, facing madness and terror.
The night seemed endless. The mages had gone, and a wind was now shrieking across the rooftops, driving squalls of cold rain in my face. I turned my back on the wind, then bowed my head and tossed it forward repeatedly until my hood dropped down over my hair. I hunkered down, attempting to shelter from the elements as best I could. But it was useless, and soon I was soaked to the skin. The goat began to bleat, louder and louder; after a while it seemed to me that it was even calling my name, then laughing insanely. With my hands tied, I couldn’t push my fingers into my ears to blot out the noise.
Finally the sky grew lighter, and within hours the market was full of people once more.
It was growing dark again and the rain had eased by the time the platform was lowered and I stepped onto the cobbles. I was shaking with cold. I was really hungry by now and glad of the plate of mutton and dry bread my captors gave me, once my hands had been untied. I wolfed the whole lot down.
My instincts told me that something was about to happen. Was it the witch’s turn to be sacrificed? My stomach knotted with nerves at that thought. Before she died, she’d no doubt want to have her revenge in full. But if I was indeed to be executed now, why had they bothered to feed me? Time ticked by. The mages were growing agitated. And then Doolan arrived, ax over his shoulder.
“Scarabek has vanished,” he growled. “I find it hard to believe that she should let us down like this.”
“What about the barrow keeper, sir?” one of the mages asked.
“There’s no sign of him either, but we can’t fail now!” the Butcher cried. “Not when things have gone so well. Two sacrifices have already been made.” He turned toward me and stared at me with hard, cruel eyes. “We’ll execute the boy first to make it three. It could buy us some time by appeasing Pan until Scarabek returns.”
There was a murmur of approval, and Doolan began to pull on his gloves. Rough hands seized me, and I was dragged toward the execution block.
CHAPTER XII
THE OLD GOD PAN
THERE were simply too many of them—I had no hope of resisting their combined strength. The mages pushed me down onto my knees, and seconds later my throat was positioned against the cold, damp stone.
I began to shake. Even stronger than my fear of the ax was the knowledge that at the moment of my death I would immediately be snatched away by the Fiend. I struggled again, but someone was holding my hair, keeping my head down, my neck exposed, ready for the ax; my outstretched arms were pulled so tight that they were in danger of being torn from their sockets. I was helpless.
I sensed the ax being raised and tensed myself for the inevitable blow, squeezing my eyelids shut. Everything was over. I thought of the Spook. I had failed him. Then, at the very last moment, I heard footsteps coming toward us.
“Wait!” shouted a voice that I immediately recognized. It was Thin Shaun, the barrow keeper.
“Where is Scarabek?” the Butcher demanded.
“She’ll bring her head to the block willingly, don’t you worry,” Thin Shaun told him. “I’ll lay my life on it. Why kill the boy now? She hasn’t finished with him yet. There is still tomorrow. I guarantee she will be here by then.”
“Then, once again, I ask you: Where is she now?”
“She is a prisoner, but I will follow and release her. She hasn’t been taken far—”
“Our enemies have her—the Alliance?”
“Enemies have her, yes, but not ones who are known to us,” Thin Shaun answered. “They must certainly be powerful to have taken her unawares. But they’ll regret this. I am the keeper of the barrows. They have yet to face my wrath. Then they’ll wish they’d never been born!”
Although he spoke of wrath, Thin Shaun seemed very calm, displaying little emotion. I wondered if he was really human at all.
I was hauled to my feet, and I stood there, trembling, while the mages walked away to discuss Thin Shaun’s news. Two of their servants still gripped my arms. In any case, I was too weak to run away.
Doolan returned and addressed Thin Shaun. “You have until the same time tomorrow night, when we’ll perform the fourth and final rite—otherwise we’ll kill the boy in her place. For our efforts to be successful, it is vital that Scarabek is here to offer herself voluntarily.”
Thin Shaun nodded and left immediately. My hands were tied again, and I was dragged onto the platform next to the goat. It was rapidly hoisted into the air, and I knelt there in shock. I had come within seconds of death; I had sensed the ax beginning to fall.
Once I’d collected my senses, I started thinking about what Thin Shaun had said. Who could have snatched Scarabek? She was powerful—not easy to overcome. Maybe it was the Spook? After all, Thin Shaun had claimed that someone “unknown” had done it. If so, my master would now be in grave danger.
The night passed very slowly, and long before dawn the goat began to bleat pitifully, as if in pain. In the pale moonlight, I saw drops of blood ooze from the wounds on its head, where the barbed wire had cut it. The blood ran in rivulets down its face, circling its eyes to reach its mouth, whereupon its tongue emerged and began to lick the blood away.
Now the goat’s cries changed dramatically; they became powerful, as if sending out a challenge. I wanted to avert my gaze but was unable to do so; I was forced to watch as the goat’s face began to distort and change into something half human, half animal.
Dread came then—a feeling of terror of something loathsome and terrible—but it was different from that cast by any witch. I had faced those spells before, and usually knew how to overcome their effects. But this had something else, an added ingredient: a touch of compulsion, too. I felt a sudden urge to move close to the goat, a need to touch it. Unable to help myself, I shuffled forward on my knees until I was so close that the fetid breath of the creature washed over me.
The goat was now fully transformed. I was in the presence of Pan. He had a human face with a hint of the bestial; wild and rugged, ravaged by the elements. The horns had gone, but the hooves remained. The only other remaining animal feature was the eyes: The pupils were black slits that glittered insanely.
Pan lurched up from all fours to stand upright, towering over me, his hind hooves
still bound by the silver chains. And then he laughed long and loud—with the uncontrollable, delirious hilarity of the insane. Wasn’t he reputed to drive his victims mad? I felt completely lucid; my thoughts seemed ordered and logical. I was afraid, yes, and took deep breaths to calm myself, but for now it appeared that he was the crazy one, not me.
Did being a spook’s apprentice help me to remain relatively rational? No sooner had that thought entered my head than everything began to spin, and I was plunged into utter darkness. I felt myself falling anyway. It was as if the wooden structure had collapsed beneath me and I was hurtling down toward the cold cobbles below.
I heard the wind whistling through reeds and water trickling musically across rocks nearby. I was lying on my back; I immediately opened my eyes and sat up. The first thing I noticed was that my hands were no longer bound.
I was sitting on a grassy bank close to a river, which was gleaming like silver. I looked up, expecting to see the moon, but the sky was dark. Then I noticed that everything around me was glowing with a faint silvery light. At the river margin, tall reeds swayed rhythmically in the light wind that was blowing downstream toward me. They too gave off that silver sheen.
Where was I? How was this possible? Was it a dream? If so, it had an unusual clarity to it: I could smell blossoms on the breeze, and the ground felt very solid beneath me. To my left was the edge of a forest, which continued on the other bank. There were deciduous trees as far as the eye could see, the branches heavy with blooms, and the air was balmy. It seemed to be high summer, not the chill prespring weather of Killorglin.
I got to my feet and heard a new sound. At first I thought it was the whistle of the wind ruffling the reeds, but there were definite notes, and I found it compelling. I wanted to hear more.
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