Poison

by Chris Wooding

  The Scarecrow rang its bell again.

  She stumbled towards the nearby table, coming down hard on it with both hands, propping herself against it as the muscles of her legs betrayed her. The lantern was a soothing glow, inviting her to sleep in its soporific light.

  “No. . .” she said through gritted teeth; and she summoned up a picture of Azalea in her crib, Azalea who had been taken by this creature. She thought of the changeling, the black-eyed monster that had been left in her place. This thing had begun it all. It was down to this phaerie abomination that she had suffered everything since. She squeezed all the hate and anger she could feel out of that. She wanted revenge before it all ended, and that desire gave her a last surge of strength, drawing what tiny reserves she had for one final, desperate ploy.

  With a weak cry, she turned around, snatching up the lantern and flinging it at the Scarecrow. It smashed into her enemy full in the chest, spraying its contents all over and igniting. The Scarecrow shrieked as it was engulfed in flame, licking tongues of fire spreading greedily along its coat. It flailed helplessly, staggering this way and that, crashing into bookshelves – which, protected still by magick, did not catch light – and screaming as the flames grew thicker and fiercer. The air filled with the ugly stench of charring. Poison swayed, the last of her energy gone, and slumped to the floor. She fell towards oblivion with the agonized wails of the Scarecrow in her ears, her eyes trying vainly to focus on the column of fire where the evil phaerie had collapsed into a smouldering pile of rags.

  And then, as if a heavy blanket had been lifted from her shoulders, the tiredness fell away. She felt vigour seep back into her, pouring strength into her muscles and sharpening her thoughts. She pulled herself up, got unsteadily to her feet. The flakes had lost their power now the phaerie was no more. A fierce grin of disbelief spread across her face. She had beaten it. She had killed the thing that had stolen her sister.

  The others were stirring now, awakening from their unnatural sleep. Poison dragged them up, one by one, and instructed Peppercorn to pick up the cat. She obeyed dazedly.

  As her companions gathered themselves, Poison watched the blackened heap of clothes that had been the Scarecrow, admiring the play of flame and smoke across its corpse. A smile flickered on her face.

  Revenge never felt so good.

  The castle of Grugaroth hung over the mouth of a volcanic furnace, a great maw of bubbling magma that writhed and slid, belching noxious fumes into the air. The enormous magma pit was enclosed within a massive cavern, somewhere deep beneath the dark, hard earth of the Realm of Trolls, roofed in from the sky by millions of tons of stone. The castle was held aloft by a great ring of iron, which in turn was supported by five chains with links that were ten yards thick. The ring girdled the castle at its base, where it joined the solid stone of its foundations; the foundations hung beneath the ring, tapering away to jagged points above the lava. It was as if the monstrous construction had been ripped from the earth where it was built – roots and all – and imprisoned here, clamped in place above a seething, hellish inferno. Which, as history had it, was more or less the truth.

  The castle itself was a terrifying sight to behold. It was a black edifice of iron, low and squat like some kind of enormous anvil, all hard edges and spikes. The red light from below gave it a demonic aspect; square windows glared out over the magma. A portcullis, like a set of gritted metal teeth, stood at the end of a vast bridge that linked the castle to the edge of the furnace. The whole construction hung there in defiance of physics, an impossible thing; yet there it was, and none could deny it.

  The walls and floor of the cavern were a latticework of wooden platforms and ladders, pillars and lintels and joists. Tunnels ran deep into the walls, pits gaped in the ground, and all through them swarmed the troll-folk. Dirty-faced dwarrows mined for ores, leather-skinned gnomes drew charts, ogres stamped to and fro with boulders. The air reeked of sweat and sulphur. Sparks flew as great iron machines were welded; red-hot metal hissed deafeningly as it was plunged into icy water; the cries of the foremen rose from all about, or the chants of the workers as they chipped and mined for their master in his castle.

  Grugaroth sat on a throne of black iron amid the red shadows of a vast hall. He was slouched in recline, his small eyes lost beneath his heavy brow, drumming his fingers on the armrest of the throne. There he had brooded for hours now, the Troll-King, his immense hammer by his side. He had heard of the Hierophant’s death, for even he had his spies, though he disapproved of subtlety in general when brute strength would do. Now he cogitated on the matter, processing the implications in his slow, methodical way. He was neither as quick nor as intelligent as some of his peers, but he was canny and shrewd. It had kept him on his throne for a long while now.

  The arrival of a gnome, barely as tall as his shin, went unnoticed until the nervous creature’s third cough roused him from his reverie. He shifted his attention to the newcomer with a grunt, noting with mild surprise the sullen-looking human girl that had followed him in.

  “Your pardon, Majesty,” the gnome said. “My name is Babghoh, your humble servant, and one of the keepers of your mighty stone library.”

  Grugaroth was not interested in this, but he had the patience of a glacier, so he merely waited for the gnome to continue.

  “A short while ago, a group of humans arrived in your Realm, Majesty. One of them, this female adolescent named Poison, has invoked Amrae’s Law and wishes to speak with you.”

  Grugaroth made a rumbling noise deep in his chest, which was his way of offering an affirmative.

  “Furthermore,” said Babghoh. “She asked me to tell you that she has information for you. About the Phaerie Lord Aelthar. She asked me to tell you that she shares an enemy with your Majesty.”

  Grugaroth slowly raised an eyebrow, his red eyes rolling to fix on Poison.

  Let her speak, he boomed.

  *

  There was no night or day in the Hierophant’s Realm, only an endless storm; therefore, it was hard to keep a common time there. By the human chronometer, however, it was a mere twelve hours after Poison and Grugaroth had talked that the troll-folk returned to the Hierophant’s castle, led by their King.

  Nobody was really surprised. Many of the Lords and Ladies who had departed in exasperation at the Hierophant’s refusal to address their concerns about his new masterwork had come back in the last few hours. The Hierophant’s death changed things. There would have to be a successor; and who that successor might be was of great interest to them all. For the Hierophant had trained no apprentice, named no heir to his legacy; and that meant a new appointment would have to be made. Of human blood. It was, like Amrae’s Law, an immutable decree.

  Uncertainty was everywhere. Usually, the Hierophant devised some kind of arcane test for his apprentice, a seemingly impossible task that would prove his or her worth to take the mantle of Hierophant, the lawmaker. As time had gone on, the tests given to the apprentices had become more subtle, more convoluted, until sometimes they could scarcely be recognized as tests at all. But never in all of remembered history had a Hierophant died before he had passed on his office. There was no precedent for this. For the first time, the position was literally up for grabs.

  But which human would dare to take it? It was not simply a matter of declaring themselves Hierophant. The Lords would tear them limb from limb. A person did not lightly take on the most powerful office in the Realms.

  Further consternation was caused upon the arrival of Grugaroth, as he called for an immediate assembly of all the Lords and Ladies in the largest hall of the castle. And particularly Aelthar.

  The summons was heeded by all. At a time like this, even the smallest thing might be too important to miss.

  They came together beneath the great stone arches of the hall, the nobles gathering in the space between the gargantuan pillars that propped up the ceiling. Their retinues watc
hed from the cloisters all around, a great crowd surrounding their masters. The Lords and Ladies stood in a circle, a phantasmagoria of strange beings illuminated by a huge ironwork candelabra overhead. The storm lashed the high windows at either side of the hall.

  Finally, all were assembled.

  “We are here, Grugaroth,” said Aelthar, with a mocking sneer in his tone. He was wearing Myghognimar at his belt, knowing how it would inflame the Troll King. “Time to reveal what it is that is so important to you.”

  Grugaroth made a warning rumble, his brow darkening and his massive lower jaw clenching.

  Poison, he snarled. Step forward.

  And so she did. Peppercorn squeezed her arm in support, and Bram laid his hand on her shoulder; and then she slid through the ranks of dirty dwarrow, gnomes and trolls to stand at Grugaroth’s side. She seemed minuscule in the presence of the Lords and Ladies, all of whom towered over her; but she was far too defiant to be cowed by their size.

  “This one again?” Aelthar sighed. “What a thorn you turned out to be.”

  Grugaroth ignored him. Let all here witness, he bellowed. This human girl and her companions are under my protection in this place. They shall not be harmed.

  There was scarcely even an acknowledgement of this by the assembly. They were waiting to see what would happen next. Poison’s eyes flicked over the Lords and Ladies: the Umbilicus, floating in the air, a disembodied corpse; the Daemon Lord, all flame and horn and hoof; sparkling Eternity; Gomm, the enormous tree-like golem of wood; ethereal Pariasa, the widow of the Hierophant. There were others that she did not recognize, but once again, no Asinastra. Had the Spider Lady gone to ground, back to her Realm, knowing that she might be blamed for Melcheron’s murder? Or was she lurking unseen somewhere nearby, waiting for the chance to even the odds?

  She felt scarcely better now that she had struck her deal with Grugaroth. His protection, in return for helping him exact revenge on his hated enemy. Simple enough. But how safe was she, really, against these creatures? For once she opened her mouth to speak, Aelthar and any of his allies would seek her death more keenly than ever before.

  Why was she even doing this? Why not just disappear? But she knew the answer to that. Unless she tackled Aelthar here, he would never stop hunting her until she was dead. She knew too much. And besides, there was the small matter of Azalea. Unless she got leverage over him somehow, she would never get her sister back. She was already unable to picture Azalea’s face without seeing the black eyes of the changeling instead.

  “I know who it is that killed the Hierophant,” she declared, her voice ringing surprisingly loud. “And I accuse Aelthar, the Lord of Phaerie, and Pariasa, Mistress of the Aeriads.”

  The hall erupted into pandemonium. The assembled retinues roared in outrage, whether at the gall of this insignificant human in accusing a Lord, or in support of her. Aelthar was a most powerful Lord, perhaps the most powerful now, but he was not the most popular. He had many enemies to whom Poison’s announcement afforded the prospect of long-awaited retribution.

  As to the accused, they did not react with half so much emotion. The Lady Pariasa barely gave a flicker to indicate that she had even heard Poison, only watched her with those fathomless alien eyes. Aelthar was smirking with arrogant contempt. He raised his arm for hush, and silence fell at his command.

  “Do explain,” he said, his tone as patronizing as he could make it.

  Poison held his gaze a moment too long. She was worried, and it showed. He was too self-assured, too cocky in the face of her accusation. Did he have something up his sleeve?

  She swallowed, feeling the accumulated weight of all the eyes upon her.

  “A short time ago, I visited the palace of Aelthar to reclaim the sister who he had snatched from me,” she said, her words vanishing into the stillness that had come across the gathering. “Once there, he offered me an exchange: I was to steal an item for him in return for my sister’s safe return. That item was a dagger, a forked dagger, belonging to the Lady Asinastra.”

  “I don’t deny it,” Aelthar said, folding his arms and tossing the fringe of his hair. A murmur ran round the hall.

  “Then you also admit that the dagger found in the Hierophant’s back was the dagger you sent me to steal?”

  “There’s only one of it in all the Realms,” Aelthar shrugged. “A blood-drinking knife; one of her most prized possessions, I believe. Extremely valuable.”

  —the human implies that the dagger you procured was used by you to kill the Hierophant—

  It took Poison a moment to work out where the soft, broken whisper had come from, and then it was only by following Aelthar’s gaze. The Umbilicus, the floating corpse in its aura of ghastly green light, had spoken. Or rather, the spirit that animated it.

  “I know what she implies,” Aelthar said. “But please, let her finish.”

  Poison was still perturbed by Aelthar’s unshakeable confidence. She glanced at the phaerie lady, the second victim of her accusation, but Pariasa was unreadable.

  “After I stole the dagger, Aelthar had me and my companions imprisoned. We escaped and overheard him ordering his subordinate to have us killed. We were, after all, the only ones who knew about the dagger. Not even Asinastra was to have known who took it.” Except that I told her, Poison added silently, with a twist of satisfaction. That’s one more enemy you have, Aelthar. One more for stealing my sister from me.

  “Go on,” Aelthar prompted.

  “It was that dagger that was used to kill the Hierophant; but it was not Aelthar that killed him. It was Pariasa, the Hierophant’s wife. Who else could have got past the gargoyles guarding the doors to his chambers? Of course, any of the Antiquarians might have done it; but where is their motive? I saw the Lady Pariasa in the Phaerie Lord’s palace only a short while after I returned with the dagger. And she does have a reason to want her husband dead.”

  She was watching the proud, haughty face of the Phaerie Lord as she spoke, and was satisfied to see that this last piece of information seemed to shake him a little. He glanced at Pariasa, but she was still watching Poison. Aelthar had not known that Poison and Peppercorn had seen Pariasa in his palace.

  “She is Mistress of the Aeriads,” Poison continued, drawing strength from Aelthar’s momentary weakness, “but the Aeriads are phaeries, and she owes her allegiance to Aelthar. It’s no secret that the Hierophant was working on something new, something that all of you here were concerned about. But would you be concerned enough to murder? Would any of you? Or did Aelthar already know what the Hierophant was writing, which he would go to any lengths to stop?”

  It had the desired effect. Outrage. Grugaroth hunkered down next to Poison and glared around the room. This time they had to wait for silence.

  “I believe that Pariasa knew. I believe that the Hierophant told her what he was doing. Why wouldn’t he? Perhaps he did not suspect her of being disloyal. Perhaps he did not know that she would go to her true master, the Lord Aelthar, and tell him what she knew. The Lord Aelthar was, of course, the loudest voice when it came to demanding that the Hierophant reveal his new masterpiece: a show for your benefit. Aelthar already knew; and whatever it was, it was bad for the phaerie folk. Between the two of them, Aelthar and the Hierophant’s wife murdered the Hierophant, knowing that his work would never be finished, and so it would never be read or become law. You would eventually trace the dagger back to Asinastra, for if Aelthar had had his way, I and my friends would be dead; and you would blame her for the crime.”

  —she makes a convincing case— whispered the Umbilicus. Its puppet body did not move, merely hung limply in the air.

  “Without producing a shred of proof, of course,” Aelthar countered.

  Proof is for human courts, Grugaroth rumbled.

  Aelthar shrugged again. “You’re right, of course. Thankfully, we have none of the tediously exacting – and ul
timately ineffective – standards that the humans are so fond of. This is not a court. You are not judges. The circumstantial evidence – were it true – is quite enough to convict me in your eyes.” He examined his fingernails. “Unfortunately, it’s not true. I’ll admit I was going to have her killed when she got back from Asinastra – you all know how fond I am of humans.” This raised a smattering of laughter from the phaerie contingent. “But not for the reasons she says. Quite simply, she didn’t hold up her end of the bargain. She never came back with the dagger.”

  “That’s a lie!” Poison called out.

  “Hmm?” Aelthar said, with a roguish grin. “And I suppose that nobody but you and your human friends saw you with the dagger?”

  “Scriddle did,” Poison said, already feeling her heart sink.

  “Scriddle?” Aelthar called. A moment later his oily secretary was at his side. “Is this true?” he asked theatrically.

  “Not at all,” Scriddle replied with a grin. “She came back empty-handed.”

  Aelthar turned to the assembly, spreading his arms. “You see? I’ll admit I sent her for the dagger; I’ll admit I wanted it for myself. But it was only a whim. I sent her on an impossible errand as a reward for her impertinence in demanding an audience with me. I sent her there fully expecting her to die in the jaws of Asinastra’s spiders. Still, just so you do not think me too cruel, I did give her the means to escape if, by some miracle, she did happen to lay hold of the dagger I sought. I am fond of a gamble. Not that I would have given her her sister back anyway. As if I would lower myself to bargaining with a human!” More of the crowd laughed this time. “Typically for her chicken-hearted race, she chose to return empty-handed. I doubt that she even tried.”