‘And that I didn’t save all of you?’
‘I don’t think anyone will reproach you for the loss of one man who couldn’t be controlled.’
‘Please wait until I’m ready to go with you, Kernow. You’re speaking of a report, but when you came to fetch me from my marsh your talk was all of honours and hospitality, treats and luxury.’
I frowned and shuffled. She was right. I hadn’t been honest with her. She looked so uncertain, begrimed, youthful. I nodded to show her I agreed.
Adhan refused the women’s offer of a tub of warm water. She only accepted fresh clothes, and walked upstream to wash. When she returned, she looked completely restored, bright-eyed. Her hair was rinsed of mud, but uncombed. She was wearing a long loose blue dress, cinched with her own felted foliage belt, turned inside out so that the mud stains were concealed. She had a brown jacket and her own singed and charcoal-blackened felt boots. And her sidhe necklace.
‘I suppose you’ll do,’ I said.
She looked puzzled, and examined herself, looking for whatever it was that hadn’t quite met with my approval.
‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘I know you’re unused to company. You look very fine—especially for one who has survived a great fire.’
She smiled, then touched the claws at her throat. ‘I need to learn how to use this properly so I can run away with groups of people.’
I watched her caress the gold claws. I didn’t understand what she meant, but I believed she was telling me that she meant to learn how to somehow pick up a whole party of men and spirit them away. Maybe fly them through the air. She continued. ‘I’ll tell the king that I need to find a way in under his fortress. I’m sure there’s a gate in the hill. When I was small I lived near a gate—this feels like the same one.’
I said, ‘A way into the Land Under the Hill? The king will want you to close it. To fill it in like a dry well.’
‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ She looked perplexed. ‘The gate has been moved there. It can be moved away. It’s making the ground shake because it’s resisting movement. Something is stopping it going back where it belongs.’
I knew my king was very slow to change his ideas. He’d exhaust all his own plans before hearing another. How to warn her? I said, ‘The court is decorous, even in an encampment. One thing the king intensely dislikes is the gluttony of women. Any offer of further refreshment—a second glass of wine for example—will be a test. Don’t take that second glass or fill your plate again. Eat what you’re offered, and then parlay, and don’t eat afterwards.’ I was sure the witch would be safe from anything but attack by stealth—a sleeping draught, probably one of her own—and being bled on the keep’s foundation stones without ever waking up.
Adhan frowned. Her brow rumpled strangely as if a diamond-shaped boss of bone suddenly showed above the place her eyebrows met. And I saw it again, the look of a bird of prey worn like a crown above her gentle eyes. ‘I feel that I should do something to save you from this king, Kernow,’ she said.
I said, ‘That’s not your place.’
‘Oh, well—I don’t really have a place,’ she answered.
18
Go to Your Gate
‘That was where the story broke for me,’ Kernow told Taryn. ‘I delivered Adhan to the king’s pavilion and never saw her again. The following day the ground shook once more and the fused and still cooling foundations slumped into a hollow in the hill. A spring appeared, Nant Newydd in the Welsh—new waterway. An ancestor of yours built a dam on that brook, Taryn Cornick of the Northovers, and made a lake.
‘It was another thirty years before I heard the rest of it. What happened under the hill. By that time I had retired from soldiering and was living on charity at the court of the Chosen King. It was summer. A summer with the same hot and windy weather. Most of the court were away. The king had gone to fetch his bride and cement a great alliance. Effort and plenty had departed the castle with the king’s progress. The bakehouse was closed because there were too few mouths to feed to justify anyone having to tend ovens in the terrible heat. Food was spoiling in the castle storehouses, and vegetables wilting in the ground.
‘The weather made my eyes burn, as if there were smoke in the air. On the hottest day I sought relief in the wizard’s orchard, a maze of walled gardens where the court’s prized fruit trees grew. The fruit garden was an innovation of the king’s wizard, patron and teacher. I hadn’t met the man, though I’d often seen him at a distance, in his homespun clothes, little, bent, brown and many, many years my senior.
‘I found a bench in the deepest shade. After a time the wizard turned up and sat beside me. When I offered my mannerly greeting he gazed at me intently then said, “Kernow. You won’t know me, but we were together, up to our knees in the Monnow when the world was on fire, on a day just like this.” He spoke, and at once I knew him. He was so changed, from a youth to an ancient, from woman to man, but no one who saw that spell twice—that spell on him—could mistake it for another thing. It disguised him as ordinary, but its strength and character was so distinct and unmistakable that, when encountered a second time, the spell itself identified him. There could be no two spells like that.
‘We sat together in the hot shade, pensioner and powerful witch, and he—the old man whom I’d known as a young woman—told me the rest: what Adhan had said to the King, and then went on to do.
‘Taryn Cornick of the Northovers,’ said Kernow, ‘my first tale will be enough for you to wash, card, spin and spool for now. I’ll tell you the rest when we next meet. Now I must bid you goodnight, and climb into my bed, to be ready for tomorrow’s onslaught of children.’
Taryn wished Kernow goodnight and repaired to her bedroll. There, surrounded by the soft susurrations of her reed mattress, she switched on the phone from the OtterBox, opened its Notes app and spent half an hour writing an outline of the tale.
A few days later Taryn was lying in a field, looking up at the sky, her view interrupted only by the occasional zigging black dot of a foraging bee. She was trying to remember when she’d last lain in long grass. She recalled stretching out on a bench at the hunting camp in the Rockies and gazing up at the forest canopy, its tessellated pattern of shy crowns. But when had she last let anything rob her of peripheral vision?
In her first year away from home Taryn was casual about locking the door of her dorm room in her university hall of residence. Then Bea was killed. After that Taryn would get up several times during the night to check she had locked her door. She didn’t feel safe.
She dropped out and went to live with her mother, and before she’d even unpacked she bought a deadbolt for her bedroom door. For years she wouldn’t lie down until she felt secure, either safe or in charge, as she had with Alan. She never went any lonely place alone. She wouldn’t walk along the street wearing earbuds, and if a man approached her, to ask for directions or—more often—spare change, she’d give him as wide a berth as she could without provoking hostility. She never surrendered her situational awareness, didn’t sit on a park bench, close her eyes, tip her head back, and bask. She kept her eyes open and always wore the bear bells of an unwelcoming stare, a look that said, Stay well clear of me.
Taryn stretched her arms up over her head. Her turf bed rustled and released more grassy perfume. She was full to the brim with a sense of contentment, an animal happiness that wasn’t normal for her yet, but which she now felt she had a right to.
She’d have to move soon. When they’d arrived at Hell’s Gate, Shift said he reckoned it was two hours till sunrise in London. He wasn’t sure of the date. Either the tenth or eleventh of May. Taryn’s flight was on the twelfth. But that was all right. She’d rather not have to shop for food or settle in. She had removed the perishables from her refrigerator before she’d left for Aix and hadn’t been back to her flat since.
The clouds in one corner of her slot of blue had a rose tinge, and the browsing insects and nodding flowers were silhouettes. The sun had gone fr
om this level stretch of the Horse Road.
Taryn sat up. The sun had vanished behind one range of hills but was still lighting a higher range, farther off. The shaded hills were a smoky lavender, the open valley green, with a miles-wide circle around the gate of wildflowers: blue and orange, red, purple and white.
Shift and Neve were leaning on the stone pillars that flanked the gate. Shift was crumbling dry seedheads for a flock of those apricot-coloured songbirds. The birds happily pecked between the pillars, quite unperturbed. Neve wore the sword, and her right hand was covered by the claws of the Gatemaker’s glove.
The Gatemaker, Shift’s grandmother. Neve’s mother. A person, not an emblematic thing. Then Taryn thought, I must ask Shift if he knows where the apostrophe belongs in Princes Gate. Whether it’s fairy princes, or a particular prince.
Once it was light in London, Neve would send Taryn out onto one of those meadow trails in Hyde Park where strangers still met to canoodle (Taryn’s father’s word) on fine summer days. Taryn would head towards the bridle path—there’d be people there, even if it was very early, or raining. Taryn would walk along the bridle path, towards her street. Either that, or her phone would find its telco, give her the correct time and she could sign in to her Uber and summon a ride.
She raised her phone and started filming Neve, Shift, the songbirds.
The birds exploded from the ground and scattered.
Shift and Neve came off the pillars. Neve drew her sword—it came out of its scabbard singing as if it were alive.
Taryn dropped her arm and backed off a few steps—but then she raised the phone again.
The air between the pillars turned dark, and a demon stepped through the gate.
Taryn was filled with dismay. She had absorbed Shift’s explanation of demons—that they were either spirits or bodies. She was sure Neve and he were expecting a body. This thing might be physical, but it wasn’t solid, and it had no limbs that Neve might lop off.
It was huge, a good ten foot in height, and of near equivalent circumference. It was bruise-black and fuming. It looked like dark pigment dropped into disturbed water, turbulent and tendrilled, as if at any moment it might mix all the way into the local atmosphere and make a stain in a lighter shade of its colour, like friar’s balsam dropped in water, with a dash of gentian violet. Old-fashioned medicines.
Taryn retreated to what she hoped would be a safe distance. She didn’t flee, because the monster stood between her and her life.
The demon noticed Shift and Neve. It shimmered: a single beat like a vibrating timpani.
Neve lunged forward and thrust the sword into the roiling mass. The demon emitted a bubbling squeal like red hot metal plunged into water. Its body reshaped itself around the blade. It formed a vortex and pulled on the sword. Neve didn’t let go. She put her head down and leaped through the demon. She landed, her clothes ripped and scuffed, her hands and face bleeding, grazed, as if she’d been licked by an orbital sander. She didn’t seem to notice her injuries, but instantly spun and slashed at the mass, her eyes blazing. She danced around the edge of it, striking at it, disturbing it and, Taryn thought, driving it away from the gate.
For a moment it seemed that was what was happening. Neve was ferocious in her attack and the demon was retreating from her blows. But then the demon rolled sideways and surged past Neve. It engulfed Shift and folded him into its boiling, oily body.
Neve lurched and stumbled as if she’d been leaning on something and it had collapsed beneath her. She regained her footing and straightened. Her cold gaze calculated what her next move might be.
The demon encased Shift but didn’t touch him. He wasn’t struggling, and the substance of his attacker seemed to be suspended everywhere a centimetre from his skin. Shift looked out at them through vortices of smoke and spinning grains of darkness. He was pale with shock, or pain, but his expression was composed. He was weathering it, whatever it was—stricture maybe, or heat, for wherever the demon moved the grass had withered and blackened.
Shift met Neve’s eyes, then gave her a slight nod. To Taryn it was more a look of calm resignation than I’ve got this.
Neve thought so too. She changed tactics from offensive to defensive. She lowered her sword, stepped forward and pointed at the gate with her gloved hand.
The ground shook, and green rays of ionised air streamed up from between the stone pillars.
Neve collapsed onto her knees and dropped her fists into the grass to steady herself. The green aurora melted away, and the ground stopped shaking.
Neve raised her head and gazed at the gate. She looked puzzled.
The landscape was utterly silent. Even Taryn’s ears had stopped ringing. There was only a faint whispering crackle from the hot turf where the demon stood, and Neve’s harsh panting.
Then Taryn’s skin came alive with a horrible sensation, as if she were being stroked by stiff quills in an upward motion. Her hair filled with static and lifted from her head. Taryn knew it had, because the same thing happened to Neve. The sidhe’s shining beige mane flared and lifted.
The demon spoke. Its voice was like the sound made by sparks splattering from a welder’s torch. ‘Little god of the marshlands,’ said the demon to Shift. ‘Fate forsworn princeling.’ It was at once mocking, and a formal address. The formality was some kind of feint, because as soon as it stopped speaking it darted across the grass, making for the gate. Shift’s feet left the ground, and the demon folded him, his face to his knees, as it contracted itself and slipped back between the pillars.
Neve followed, her gloved hand pointed, some now discernible power pouring out of her.
Unmasked by the demon’s sensory disturbances, Taryn felt a reach, a grasp, and a titanic alteration coming from the gate, from the glove, and from Neve’s body.
Again the ground quivered, and the air ionised.
Taryn’s nostrils filled with the scent of ozone. Cracks formed on the ground at the base of the pillars as they rocked in their sockets. The grove that surrounded the gate began to lose all its spring foliage. The leaves detached without drying and pelted down around Taryn and Neve. Neve gave a cry of rage and threw up her arms. Everything quietened.
The sun had gone. The cool evening breeze came and chilled the sweat on Taryn’s breastbone and breathed flowers into her face. The Sidh flowed back into itself, all sweetness and calm life.
Neve sank to the ground, dropped the sword and pulled off the glove. She used her shirt’s hem to clean her face, then asked Taryn to bring her water. Her voice was hoarse.
Taryn went to the spring, filled a copper basin she found there, and carried it to Neve. She took off her lambswool scarf and dabbed at Neve’s grazes. The scarf grew pink and stippled by flaxseed-sized grains of blackish metal.
Neve studied the grains between her wet fingers. Her gloved hand was unharmed; the knuckles of her other hand were skinned raw. She got up, stooped and shook all the matter from her hair. ‘The demon had added iron filings, I believe,’ she said.
‘Is it making you sick?’
‘I can wipe most of it off. I’ll walk along the stream and find a pool to bathe in.’ Neve snapped her spine straight and her hair whipped up over her head and fell into its usual shining waves. Taryn got a whiff of Neve’s bodily perfume, which was exquisite, like good earth, moss, cold water and fresh pine needles.
‘But first I must put you through the gate.’
Taryn looked at the air between the pillars. The ground was glowing green there, carpeted with plucked leaves.
‘The gate is intact and functional. Only the way to Hell is closed to me. I have no idea how.’ Neve gave a sharp, furious bark of laughter.
‘Maybe Shift blocked you.’
‘Not without the glove.’ Neve stopped brushing at her clothes and eyed Taryn. ‘He didn’t let himself be taken, if that’s what you’re thinking. That wouldn’t serve anyone’s purpose.’
‘Hell wants him,’ Taryn said.
‘It wants him to vo
lunteer, Taryn. Hell has promised us one thousand years free of the Tithe in exchange for Shift. A million Taken souls spared. But for Hell to take Shift he must give himself.’
Taryn swallowed a few times, as if spit would help her digest this. Then she said, ‘He was telling you something. Just now.’
‘He was telling me not to risk my life.’
Taryn nodded.
‘He’s the last child of the blood, and grandson of a Gatemaker. That’s always been his value to those of us who treasure him. Others of us would like to trade his valuable soul, while it still has value. There has been a stalemate for a long time—the opportunists have waited to be sure he’s no longer strong enough to defend himself against however many of them it would take to hustle him to Hell’s Gate, and then nag him through it. They believe they can make him hate himself enough to go. Or he’ll become so afraid of his future he’ll decide to make the best use of his remaining time by offering himself and being honoured in our memory. That’s why they treat him with contempt. They’re hardening their hearts against him. He’s planning to attend the Moot. At which they mean to prevail on his loneliness and misery and fear, and his sense he owes us for our friendship and hospitality—as if he isn’t one of us. If that doesn’t produce the result they want, then they plan to take him by force.’
‘He knows this?’
‘I haven’t told him they’re planning to take him by force. I’d rather their treachery comes as a surprise, and he defends himself instinctively.’
Neve continued to dab at her face. Blood was still seeping to the surface, bright, as if purging itself of iron was its business before it clotted.
‘My people think they can beguile and manipulate any mortal. And they think of Shift as mortal. The spell my sister Adhan put on him before she died makes everyone see him as slight, plain, insubstantial. As no one special. My people imagine they can inveigle him. Once he was too wise to fall for any of their tricks. Too knowledgeable. Now they think he’s sufficiently diminished to give in.’ Neve rinsed the cloth and wrung it out. Watery blood was flowing in pink rivulets on her face and throat. The bodice of her dress was stained. The silk thread of the embroidered flowers and vines was more thirsty than the plain linen and had taken the blood to show red on pink.
The Absolute Book Page 25
