The Black Chalice

Forty-Six

He rode for three days and three nights, riding the animal into the ground. He did not stop for rest, did not sleep, did not eat and barely drank. When the horse's legs finally buckled beneath him he was halfway through the forest, surrounded on all sides by shadows, thick leaves and low-dragging branches that crowded him. He still had five miles or more to go before he reached the base of Sidh Chailleann. The beast pitched forward to the road, shuddering and snorting as it lay there. He watched its chest heave three times, one of its back legs kicking out weakly, and then walked away from it, leaving the horse to die alone.

He walked the last five miles to the mountain, purpled with gorse and heather.

He could not see the summit for clouds.

A fine mist of rain clung to the air and insects flew around his face, in his eyes and mouth. At first he tried to swat them away but it was futile, so he walked on, doing his damnedest to ignore the midges as they got in his mouth and up his nose.

He was dizzy with dehydration and hunger.

Before him, he could barely make out a narrow path worn in the grass at the foot of Sidh Chailleann. It suggested the clansmen still made regular pilgrimages to their ancestor's cairn. He had not anticipated that, but he should have. He should have thought it through properly. The reivers had come south as far as Medcaut looking for the book, and while they might not have known the true nature of their prize, they must have known the book was little more than a devilish treasure map, meaning they suspected the treasure was buried somewhere in their lands — why else would they have come?

Alymere could only hope the faithless bastards would honour the dead as woefully as they did the living.

He dropped to his knees, studying the worn grass. He was no expert when it came to reading tracks, but this changed things.

Would they have set a watch?

He reached down, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword. It would not matter if they had. He had fought and killed the reivers once, and could do so again.

The wind whipped down the mountainside, whistling mournfully through the gullies and crevices in the ancient rock. He climbed a few hundred feet closer to the clouds and the fog of midges gave way to a permanent wetness in the air that soaked through his clothes in a matter of minutes, even under a clear blue sky. He pulled his sodden cloak tighter and soldiered on, his footsteps leaden, small stones scuffing under the soles of his boots. When he looked up again he saw a bird — the first he had seen in days. For a moment he thought it must have been a falcon or a kestrel, from the way it seemed to hang in the air before sweeping down, but as it flew by him he saw the streak of white feathers mottling the black and knew it was the same damned crow. It could only mean that he was on the right path.

Not that the Devil inside him would confirm that. The book had been strangely silent for days. He found himself missing its voice, something he would never have thought possible.

And then he saw it no more than two hundred feet above him on the slope, the pile of broken stones laid one atop another to form a huge cairn. Even from this far below, it was obvious that the cairn was huge — a fitting monument for a fallen king, he thought. Three, four times his height and vast in circumference.

He saw the shadowy outline of a man standing before the cairn, but as he took a few more steps and the angle of the sun shifted, he seemed to disappear into the stones. There was no-one there. The effect was unnerving. Alymere reached instinctively for the comfort of his sword, not trusting his eyes. Things, in his experience, did not simply disappear. He thought again of what the Scots called this place, the fairy hill, and what that might actually mean. The Picts were superstitious to the point of being primitive, but they were not stupid. Was it possible this place stood between worlds? Was this a gateway to the the land of Annwn?¹¹ Did Nectan's shade stand as guardian over the Chalice in the dead lands?

All he knew for sure was that Sidh Chailleann was sacred to the clans, and the Devil had promised him all would be revealed once he reached the cairn of the great laird.

The bird cawed raucously, banking in the air before him, and streaked away toward the cairn. He watched as the crow circled it once, twice, three times, widdershins, only to vanish in an instant from the clear blue sky.

He stopped, staring, refusing to believe his eyes. The crow did not reappear.

"I am here," he said, not daring to look away from the stones in case something slipped through from the other side unseen. The clouds were thicker here, strands of white clinging to the heather behind the cairn like ghosts. The lowering sun filtered through the wraiths of cloud. Mist gathered to transform the hillside into an eerie half-world of light and shadow shapes. His breath misted up in front of his face. It was colder now, and not just a little, he realised. He hadn't felt it happening, but the cold was now biting.

He walked cautiously toward the cairn, not sure what he expected to happen. It dwarfed him.

He found himself mirroring the crow, circling the cairn cautiously. He tried to look everywhere at once; down the mountainside, across the treetops of Coit Celidon and the crystal blue waters of Loch Tay, at the stones themselves stacked one atop another, and the deep shadows between them. He tried to watch the sky for the crow, in case it might suddenly reappear in a burst of caws and falling feathers. He tried to take in the rest of the path as it rose toward the peak, and the jagged bill of rock that marked the very top of Sidh Chailleann, hundreds of feet above him.

He completed his first circuit of the cairn, needing sixty paces to do it.

The air felt alive around him. His skin crawled with it; with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

He was close. He could feel it.

Yes, the presence that had taken up root within him crooned, urging him on.

The muscles in his legs burned. His head swam from the exertion and from hunger. His vision blurred slightly, the landscape around him fogging, and for a moment he was willing to put that down to the same thing, but it wasn't. He had started his second ring around the stone cairn, and in doing so had passed through the first veil. His breath quickened. His heartbeat matched it, beating more and more erratically against his ribs. He forced himself to press on, feeling the wind rise to batter at his face and body as though the elements themselves were amassing to hold him back. He didn't know what he expected to find waiting around the next corner; an army of kirtled highlanders looking to spill blood, perhaps?

Alymere put his head down and pushed on into the storm.

And a storm it was.

The mist had become rain, and now lashed at him, stinging his face and hands. The wind howled, bullying him, but he refused to let it push him even a single step backwards.

Halfway around his second pass, he made the mistake of looking down at his hands. They were shaking, but that wasn't what unnerved him so badly. They had begun to fade, blurring around the edges. He reached out, holding his hands out before him, and saw that they lost a little more clarity and definition. He pulled them back sharply, wanting to turn and run and forget all about the Black Chalice.

You are my knight, Alymere, my champion. Bring me my grail.

He could not refuse the voice.

He did not want to refuse.

He walked on.

After six more paces, as he came around to the front of the cairn to complete the second lap, he heard the sound of a dog barking in the distance. He peered down the slope through the storm, but could see neither hide nor hair of the animal. He glanced back over his shoulder, but all he could see there was thickening white mist. With each step forward, the barking intensified; the dog had his scent now. He started to run. He could hear it bounding across the open ground, hear it slavering and panting between growls, but the animal was nowhere to be seen.

Then, between one step and another, the sky went black.

Somehow in that single footstep he had left the day behind and stepped into night.

He didn't have time to panic — a huge black hound came racing toward him, every powerful muscle visible beneath its slick pelt. Its eyes burned sulphurous yellow in the moonlight, and its teeth — long saliva-flecked fangs — gleamed wickedly. Alymere stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment he couldn't move; all he could do was stare at the animal. It was easily twice the size of any dog he had ever seen. Its huge gait devoured the distance between them. He drew his sword, for what little good it would do him against the monstrous hound.

Behind it, he saw the dog's master striding purposefully up the hill towards him. Like his beast, the man was black as night. He wore the shadows like a cloak, masking his face, and was big. Considerably bigger than Alymere. Broader at the shoulder, thicker at the trunk, and graced with forearms like huge ham hocks. As he drew closer Alymere saw that he was wearing some sort of blackened leather armour, with a skirt over his thighs in the Roman style. A huge double-headed axe rested against his shoulder, the blades demonic in the jaundiced moonlight.

"Call it off!" Alymere demanded, the wind stealing his words away.

The axeman gave no indication that he had heard Alymere's plea, and his face was unreadable, wrapped in black cloth.

And then the dog was on top of him, snapping and snarling as he brought his sword to bear. Alymere moved instinctively, ramming the blade between the huge animal's ribs even as its teeth raked his face, spattering the ground with blood. Even with his steel buried in its body, the black dog kept fighting, snapping its huge jaws as it strove to reach his throat and slashing his shirt with its claws, ripping fabric and flesh. Alymere strained to keep the beast at arm's length, but faltered as it lunged again; his scream curdled in his throat as the dog's teeth sank into the side of his face and tore his right ear off. Blood streamed from the wound, but the scarred flesh of his ruined face felt no pain.

That saved his life.

He rammed the sword in deeper, thrusting it up all the way through the dog's body until the animal jerked and spasmed on the end of it like a spit. And still he drove the sword deeper, twisting the blade until it scraped against bone.

Only then did Alymere wrench his sword clear.

He kicked the still twitching carcass away and turned to face the dog's master.

"Have you come to die as well?"

The axeman said nothing.

"Very well," Alymere sucked in a ragged breath and wiped away the blood from the side of his face with his free hand, "Best get on with it."

They came together. Still the axeman said nothing. There was a coldness behind his eyes that chilled Alymere more than anything else. He lunged forward, throwing himself off-balance in the hope that the sudden assault would end the duel before it had even begun. The axeman caught his blade on the long shaft of his double-headed axe and brought the butt of it scything around to sweep Alymere's legs out from under him.

The boy leapt back, barely avoiding the blow, and stumbled on the loose shale beneath his feet. He feinted low, to the right, drawing the black warrior's defenses towards a strike that, at the very last moment, he reversed and slashed upwards. The tip of his blade opened a shallow cut across the axeman's belly to his sternum, but even as it did, the wound sealed itself behind his sword and Alymere felt burning pain slice deep through his own belly and up towards his throat. He looked down at the gash that had opened up, and the blood soaking through his shirt, and staggered back before the axeman's silent onslaught.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and stuck again, this time slicing through the muscle and tendon of the axeman's left arm, feeling the muscle tear away on his own arm as he did so.

They fought bitterly in and out of the shadow of the towering cairn. Twice he had struck the axeman, twice the blows had bitten deep, and twice Alymere had come away wearing the wounds whilst the axeman remained unmarked. He staggered back another step, wondering how he could possibly best the warrior without slicing through his own throat.

The black warrior came on remorselessly, still saying nothing.

Alymere brandished his sword, holding it out before him and cutting at the air wildly in an attempt to keep the axeman at bay, but it occurred to him that all his opponent had to do was simply walk into his wild cuts and he'd cripple Alymere without having to lift a finger. He lowered his sword, letting the tip drag against the dirt, and stared at his opponent. There was no sign the man was winded, or that the exertion of running up the hillside had taken the slightest toll on him. There was no sign he was breathing at all, Alymere realised.

He circled his opponent warily, never taking his eyes off the huge double-headed blade.

The giant made no move to swing, though he could quite easily have cleaved Alymere's head from his shoulders.

Or could he?

Could he inflict any sort of hurt of his own volition? Or was he merely a mirror-soul?

There had to be a way around this thing — whatever it was, he was absolutely sure it was not a man, or not a mortal one — all he had to do was use his head and think.

Think.

His mind was the key that would set him free.

Could it be as simple as cutting himself? He tried it, running his thumb along the edge of his blade, and drew blood.

The axeman did not bleed. So that couldn't be it.

What was this thing, then? Perhaps the secret of its undoing lay in its true nature?

He could see nothing of its features, obscured as they were by the cloth wound around the axeman's face. His eyes were empty — no, not empty, he realised. They were obsidian, reflective. They only gave back what they were offered. So when Alymere saw emptiness behind them, it was his own emptiness he was seeing.

Alymere lashed out with his blade a third time, deliberately pulling the blow at the very last instant. He cut and parried, transforming the fight into a dance of cuts without ever delivering the final blow. The black warrior mirrored each blow perfectly, his wrists twisting to turn the axe-blade away from Alymere's flesh each time. The moves were more than merely familiar to Alymere; they were ingrained, the axeman mirroring his own technique perfectly. It wasn't just the way he used his weapon, but in the way he moved his body, how he leaned and shuffled his feet on the ground and how as he pushed off with his left foot the toe of his right scuffed. He was toe-to-toe with himself, or a version of himself. He didn't need to see the guardian's features beneath the woollen scarf. It didn't matter that he had never wielded an axe in his life. What was it the Crow Maiden had said? There were countless possibilities of the man he could be. This was one of them. He scrambled back, ducking beneath the warrior's final blow, and the silver heads of the huge axe passed inches from Alymere's face.

He was breathing hard now, thinking harder.

"Talk to me. Tell me what to do!" he called upon the voice, but it remained silent.

He cursed it. Hawked and spat into the dirt at his feet.

The Devil mocked him with his silence.

The axeman was a reflection, then? A ghost? An automaton?

Was he here to protect the Chalice? A grail guardian? Was he a true man? Good? Evil? Did such concepts even exist on this side of the veil? And even if they did, how could he kill something that he could not harm, or even strike, without injuring himself? Did he have to kill it to defeat it? Could Alymere simply throw down his own sword? Would that be enough to render this copy of him impotent?

He thought about it, but at the last moment couldn't relinquish his grasp on his sword.

The guardian came forward again, and Alymere realised it was trying to steer him away from the cairn. Alymere cast a quick glance toward the stones. The cairn now rose to almost five times his height, hundreds and thousands of stones gathered from about the mountainside and from the land hereabouts, laid one atop another, slate, granite, basalt. All hard, dark stones. But Alymere saw a shape picked out right in the very centre of the cairn's curved wall, formed out of pale stones that obviously didn't belong.

It was a cross.

The holy symbol for a god the pagan clansmen surely did not worship?

He licked his lips.

It could not be a coincidence. Indeed, just then the book pulled heavily on his shoulders.

Break the cross. Beyond it lies the great laird's tomb, where you will find my Chalice.

There was no way he could break the stone cross, not with his bare hands and not with his sword.

He looked back to see the axeman moving relentlessly towards him once more, and an idea began to formulate within his mind. He raised his sword, shuffling sideways and bringing himself in line with the stone cross.

He dropped his shoulder and feinted for the black warrior's legs, drawing it into a heavy swing for his head. Alymere pulled his blow, ducked under the swing, and backed away until he felt the stone wall of the cairn press up against his back. There was nowhere to run, but running was the furthest thing from his mind. Now he had to use his head. He had to press the advantage he had given himself.

Alymere forced himself to stand stock still, rooted to the spot, as his chest rose and fell. The blood flowed thickly from the shallow cut, which burned whenever he tried to move. He winced through the pain, hefting his sword in his right hand, knowing that in a moment the agony was going to be blinding, but it was his only hope.

The guardian wouldn't strike until he did, that much he knew. Alymere took a moment's respite, mastering his breathing. His vision swam. The world reduced to the thing before him, and beyond that mist and pain. There was nothing else.

"Come on, then," he muttered. "Let's finish this."

With that, he lunged forward desperately, cutting high from the left, then rocking back on his heels to block and thrust at the guardian's left shoulder, reversing at the last moment to deliver a sweeping cut across the thing's midriff, barely pulling back before disembowelling it and leaving his own guts to unfurl across the mountain top.

The guardian mirrored every move with unerringly silent precision; not making a sound as it threw the weight of the huge axe from hand to hand, twisting to sweep it through low scything arcs or bring it down overhead as though chopping wood. Amidst the manoeuvring, the scarf slipped down around the black warrior's neck, baring its face for the first time.

Alymere's breath caught in his throat. He was looking at himself, but not in any form he recognised: the beard was thick, the jaw square. Indeed, the man looked uncannily like Bors. Was that the man I was meant to become? Alymere thought, even as he rammed the point of his blade deep into the axeman's belly. The guardian's obsidian eyes flared, not in pain but in triumph, as Alymere drove the point through the boiled leather plates of his armour.

You are better, the Devil crooned inside his head.

And Alymere screamed, and held on. The blood bubbled out of his gut and out of his mouth. Had he guessed wrong? Had he just seen to his own killing? The pain was incredible. Everything inside him was on fire. He cast one frantic glance over his shoulder at the stone cross. It was now or never. Alymere reached down, grasping his sword with both hands, and shrieked as he drew it out of the axeman's gut, feeling his own innards unravel as the steel slid out. There was no blood on the blade; just a sickly ichor. He managed a twisted smile. This was all about sacrifice. He was giving himself to the Devil, trading his life, his soul, for whatever aid the Horned One could grant… it was a desperate gamble. He just couldn't believe that the Devil would allow him to die, not now, not so close to the black grail.

Alymere gathered every last ounce of strength he had and threw it behind a wild overhead slash at the guardian's bare head. If it bit, the fierce swing would have cloven halfway through the bone and brain and left the sword buried, while Alymere twitched and contorted in the dirt, dying before he could even remove the blade. At the last, Alymere threw himself sideways, sprawling in the dirt, the sword spinning harmlessly from his hand even as the axeman's huge swing chopped down where his head had been only a heartbeat before.

The massive axe slammed into the centre of the cross, shattering the keystone that anchored the entire structure together. The axe clove deep into the soft rock, which splintered with a sound like bones breaking.

As the core of the cross crumbled, so too did the stones it held in place. Alymere scrambled away, bleeding and in absolute agony as the cairn groaned and the first stones began to shift. He could barely see through the sting of tears. He felt everything, not merely the tears in his flesh, but the prickle of the wind, the brush of his shirt against the cuts, everything. He was dying. He didn't know how long he had left; minutes? Less? It was all he could do to crawl a few feet further away from Nectan's cairn. He needed to put distance between them before it came down. If it came down, he amended. And even if it did, what then?

The ground beneath his hands and knees shivered, trembling, and then the black warrior tore its axe free of the stone crucifix, wrenching a dozen more of the pale stones out of the wall. The cairn could withstand the odd stone being dislodged, but the crucifix anchored the entire structure. With its integrity destroyed, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing came tumbling down in an avalanche of jagged rocks.

Alymere rolled over onto his back, clutching at his stomach as the cairn came crashing down. The noise, as stone crashed and cannoned off stone, was hideous. It drowned out every other sound, rolling like thunder across the mountain.

Part of him had hoped that breaking the cross would be enough to vanquish the thing, but it wasn't. The two had to be linked though, surely?

The thing remained eerily silent as the falling rocks battered it, hammering off its armour and skin without any seeming effect. One huge piece of slate struck its shoulder and shattered; another broke at its feet. The axeman made no move to protect itself. It wasn't created to offer any resistance, Alymere realised. It existed purely to protect the Black Chalice.

With the destruction of the cross, the key to the cairn, the axeman had failed in its duty as the last defender of the Devil's Grail. If Alymere had guessed right, the cross in the wall had marked the spot where the Chalice itself was buried, like a treasure map. And now, as the Chalice was uncovered in the cairn's collapse, its guardian would be buried in its stead. There was a fearful symmetry to it.

It didn't offer any defence as the stones smashed off its chest and head. It simply held on to its axe, waiting for Alymere to attack again. It had no understanding of its own, and didn't grasp that the stones were Alymere's last, best weapon against it — a weapon he did not need to wield, at that.

The axeman was the last ward, the final protection for the Chalice. Anyone looking to steal it must first best himself, not as he was, but the best that he could have been. The axeman was all that Alymere might have become had he not strayed from the road into the Crow Maiden's glade and lain down with her in the snow as it melted around them, their embrace taking them to the kingdom of summer and back. What he saw reflected in the axeman's black eyes was the good he had lost along the way.

He would never recover it; he knew that. He had accepted it. It didn't matter.

All that mattered was finding the Chalice. If it truly was the Devil's cup and had similar properties as the legendary Grail, then one sup from it might save his life. Or damn him forever.

That was the risk he was just going to have to take. He was damned if he didn't, and most assuredly damned if he did.

Clinging to consciousness, Alymere lay on the damp grass, watching Nectan's cairn collapse, burying the thing even as it revealed the long dead clansman's tomb.