The Burning Man

9

‘Are you sure we should be doing this, master?’ Jerzy’s chalk-white face was hidden in the folds of his sodden cowl as he bowed his head against the torrential rain. The white horse he had borrowed from Niamh’s stables made its way slowly through the treacly mud of the lane. ‘This land is dangerous now. We are at risk of attack anywhere outside the court’s walls.’

The rain reminded Mallory of trekking on horseback across Salisbury Plain. It had been a similarly difficult time with threats on every side, yet the simple fact that he could recall it filled him with elation. His love-making with Sophie the previous night had unleashed a flood of memories, and it was a struggle to assimilate them into the life he thought he had. It had affected Sophie the same way. Unsettled, she’d been sad to see him go, but they both knew there was no choice in the matter.

‘I’d be an idiot to be sure about anything in these times,’ he said, ‘but I do know we’re going to need all the help we can get.’

‘There are swords in the court-’

‘Not like this one. There are three great swords of Existence, filled with the power of the Pendragon Spirit. This one is Llyrwyn. I carried it for a while before the Void took everything away from me. Church has another of the swords, Caledfwlch. And it sounds like that bastard Veitch has the third, only somewhere down the line that one has become corrupted.’

‘But you don’t know where the sword is now. It was lost when the Devourer of All Things made its changes.’

‘I’m making an educated guess. The sword had a keeper. I’m betting she found it and brought it back here until it was needed again.’

The landscape was suffused with rain, dripping from the trees, pooling in the meadows where the grass glistened a damp October green, spattering off the brown hedgerows. They came over a ridge to find the Court of Peaceful Days, still and brooding. The martial banners hung limply and the gates were shattered. The once well-tended grounds were overgrown with long grass and willow herb pressing hard against the sprawling low buildings. An oppressive air of desolation lay upon it.

‘The Enemy must have struck!’ Jerzy whined. ‘Oh, how this court has fallen! Once it rang with war drums and the clash of metal, with songs for the lives given to battle for the sake of glory and honour. But then its forces were decimated in the war with the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders and a great sadness fell upon the place. And now this!’

‘The sword might still be here,’ Mallory said. ‘Let’s go.’

No birds sang as they made their way through the gates to the great front door, which hung open, unattended; the only sound was the constant hammering of the rain on the buildings.

They tethered their horses and Mallory led the way into the atrium. It was cold and silent. Jerzy made intermittent whimpering noises until Mallory glared at him to stop.

They passed through room after room, all deserted. In some, they found an upturned table or chair, occasional shattered glass, enough to hint at trouble, but nothing that indicated an invasion by overwhelming force.

‘I do not understand,’ Jerzy whispered. ‘Queen Rhiannon’s warriors had renounced violence, but they still would have defended the court with their lives.’

‘Maybe they were surprised.’ Even as Mallory said it, it didn’t ring true.

Eventually they came to the iron-studded oaken doors of the great hall. They had been sealed shut with chains, and warning sigils were scrawled all over them. The carcass of a gutted dog lay before it, now just fur and bone.

‘Can you read those?’ Mallory nodded towards the sigils.

Jerzy cowered. ‘They are marks of great power, warning of destruction to anyone who crosses the barrier to this room.’

‘Looks like this is where we need to go.’

Jerzy moaned, but Mallory was already in search of the armoury. In the dripping darkness of a stone sub-cellar, he located several barrels of gunpowder. He forced Jerzy to help him carry two barrels to the door of the great hall, leaving a trail of the black powder along the corridor.

‘Master, are you not scared of bringing destruction upon your head?’ Jerzy asked as Mallory prepared to strike a flint.

‘Firstly, I’m not anybody’s master and you really need to stop calling me that. Secondly, I don’t think I’m coming out of this whole business in one piece so there’s no point being timid.’

‘You remind me of my good friend Church.’

‘Insult me, why don’t you. I’m a party guy. He’s got the world on his shoulders, and we all know what all work and no play lead to.’ Mallory struck the flint and the gunpowder fizzed into life.

They dashed around the corner before the deafening explosion sent a flare of heat that scorched the walls of the corridor. Smoke and stone dust clouded the air as they clambered over the rubble to where the doors had been. The rain now fell through a large hole in the roof, and part of the wall had been demolished.

The hall was dark and windowless. Mallory lit a torch and progressed cautiously into the gloom. Halfway across the hall, amidst the echoes of his footsteps, the torchlight illuminated something glowing at the far side.

Jerzy tugged at Mallory’s sleeve. ‘Master … good friend, let us be away now. I am scared.’

‘What is that?’ Mallory tried to pierce the enfolding dark. He continued to advance. The golden glow came and went as the torch flickered, and finally he realised it was one of the Tuatha De Danann.

‘Who’s there?’ he called out.

The figure made limited movements and a high-pitched whine that set his teeth on edge.

The torch finally revealed Rhiannon, the queen of the court, encased to her neck in an iron sheath, her arms pulled into a crucifix position by chains suspended from the ceiling. Hooks on wires kept her eyes permanently open. Her mouth had been sewn shut.

‘God, how long has she been like this?’ Mallory rushed forward to free her, but her whining increased insistently. As he struggled to release the iron sheath he saw why: tiny needles on the underside of the sheath dug deeper into her flesh with every attempt to remove it.

Jerzy fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face at the queen’s suffering. ‘What evil could do such a thing?’

‘We know what evil.’ Mallory looked into Rhiannon’s eyes briefly, but what he saw there was too much to bear. His gaze fell on a long iron box on a stone plinth nearby. A thin blue light leaked from it. As Mallory examined it, soothing whispers filled his head.

‘The sword’s in here,’ he said. But as he went to open the box, Rhiannon’s muffled cries rose up urgently. Mallory backed away. ‘Makes sense they’d booby trap it.’ He returned to Rhiannon. ‘There’s got to be a way to free her.’

‘Only the Enemy would make release cause more pain than imprisonment,’ Jerzy said.

Mallory forced himself to look into Rhiannon’s eyes again to let her know he would help. But she repeatedly rolled her eyes down and to the left. Mallory followed the direction she was indicating.

All he could see was a silver clasp at the shoulder of her dirty, torn dress; tentatively, he reached for it.

The clasp became fluid, turning into a silver egg that sprouted eight legs. Mallory snatched his hand back.

‘It is a Caraprix,’ Jerzy said. ‘All the gods have them. Companions, confidantes … they have a strange power all their own.’

‘She wants me to take it.’ Mallory hesitated, then held out his hand palm upwards. The silver spider scuttled onto it, throbbing with light and power, though cool to the touch. Mallory held it up to eye-level.

Before he could react, it leaped, the sharp, silvery legs clinging to his face as it forced his lips open, then his teeth. He gagged, tried to rip it out, but it was like mercury, sliding through his fingers into his mouth and down his throat. The bulk of it closing his airway brought panic. Clawing at his throat, he saw stars, and then felt a sharp stabbing pain. A second later he was unconscious.

But the darkness led instantly to light. Fractured images passed before him, a world seen through oil, with a silvery landscape and a silvery sky merging into one. Enormous creatures moved against the distant skyline and after a while Mallory realised they were Caraprix, but greater and more powerful than he would ever have believed. With the vision came the knowledge that he, and everyone, had misjudged them: not pets or parasites, companions or confidantes. They were greater than anything in the Fixed Lands or the Far Lands, greater perhaps than everything.

He heard a voice saying, ‘The closer things are to the heart of Existence, the more fluid they become.’

But then the image shifted, and in that dreamy vision he saw warriors dressed all in black with hoods over their heads. Flashes of perception: the warriors running through the Court of Peaceful Days; Rhiannon’s warriors falling beneath sword and axe; and then the warriors advancing towards him, and Mallory realising he was seeing the scene through Rhiannon’s eyes. Another flash. Frightening yet incomprehensible images, and then a slow, subtle revelation …

Mallory came round with a concerned Jerzy leaning over him and the Caraprix scuttling away from his mouth and back to Rhiannon.

‘We have to get at the sword. We can use that to free Rhiannon,’ he said.

‘How do you know these things?’

‘It told me.’ Mallory examined the box again. ‘Touch this the wrong way and it’ll release a blade that’ll take your hands off at the wrist.’

‘You could just blow it up with gunpowder,’ Jerzy said archly.

‘Sarcasm. Good. You’ll be one of us in no time. Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea except I know for a fact that there’s only one way into it.’

Mallory steeled himself and went over to Rhiannon. Of all the Tuatha De Danann, she was one of the most compassionate and it was a tragedy that she suffered so. The hope in her wide eyes made it even worse.

‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ he began. ‘The only way to free you without killing you is with the sword. And the only way to open the box is with your hand. That’s the trick of the trap. Here you both are, a few feet apart, yet it’s a puzzle that’s impossible to solve.’ He took a deep breath to hide the tremor in his voice. ‘Or nearly impossible.’

She was trying to read his face, but couldn’t see the answer.

‘I can open the box if I cut off one of your hands.’

Her eyes stretched wider than he would have thought possible. The whine in her throat grew high-pitched once again. He wanted it to stop.

‘We don’t have to worry about shock or blood loss killing you. Your kind are tougher than that. But the pain will be unbearable. No anaesthetic, nothing to dull it. It could scar your mind for ever.’ He fought to calm his pounding heart so that he didn’t make it worse for her. ‘Do you want me to proceed?’

Her eyes continued to scan his face, searching for another way, hoping against hope. Finally she signalled her agreement. A single tear trickled from the corner of one eye to the edge of her mouth where it moistened the dry stitches.

‘Left or right?’

She indicated her left.

Mallory nodded as dispassionately as he could and turned to talk quietly to Jerzy. ‘Bring me a boning knife from the kitchens.’

‘Good friend, are you sure you can do this?’ Jerzy whispered.

‘The sick thing is, I’ve done much worse than this in my life. I can’t afford to be pathetic. I have to do it for her.’

‘You spoke of the pain scarring her mind. But this act will scar your own mind.’

‘Just fetch the knife, Jerzy.’

Jerzy returned with a leather-bound box. He tripped and the glittering contents skidded across the flags, cruel blades all, with barbs and serrations and razor edges.

‘Cool move, Jerzy,’ Mallory muttered.

Jerzy frantically gathered up the knives and Mallory took them out of Rhiannon’s view. He selected the one he thought would be quickest and cleanest and hid it behind his back.

‘Still a chance to back out,’ he said.

Tears swam in her eyes, but she indicated for him to continue.

‘I’d do the same in your position. You’re very brave.’

Mallory rested the edge of the knife on her wrist. It was cool, her skin smooth and delicately shaded. He fought to stop his hand from shaking.

The next five minutes were lost to him. He vaguely remembered the sounds that came out of her, but they would return to haunt him during the nights to come.

Then he turned, holding it, and what brought it all home was Jerzy, the jester, usually filled with life and dance, on his knees, sobbing hysterically, yet still grinning through it: an image of the insanity to which they had all been brought.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Rhiannon, her head slumped on her chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. At the box, he placed the stiffening hand on the spot the Caraprix had shown him. The lid sprang open with a flash of blue sparks, and there was the sword, calling to him. In his hand, it felt warm, easing his pain. With one sweep, he severed the clasp that held the iron sheath in place. The second sweep cut the chains and Rhiannon fell into his arms. She was barely conscious.

Mallory laid her on the flags and took another of the kitchen knives to cut the thread sealing her lips. But as the first stitch was severed, her eyes fluttered shut and her head lolled to one side.

Jerzy leaned forward to test the shallowness of her breath. ‘A secondary enchantment. When you cut the thread, it put her into the Sleep Like Death.’

‘So she couldn’t tell us what happened,’ Mallory said bitterly. ‘Can we help her?’

‘Perhaps. Back at the Court of the Soaring Spirit — Math the Sorcerer could help.’

As Mallory carried her through her desolate home, a cold desire for revenge filled him. Nothing would deter him from it.