by Jaine Fenn
She looked over her shoulder to see Sais approaching. The two priests waited back down the corridor, looking uncertain. Kerin took half a step back - her thoughtless concern for Damaru may have put them all in danger. Sais brushed past her and stared at the marks on the screen. He made a quiet ‘hah!’ sound, and gave a small shake of his head.
‘What are you doing?’ called Urien.
‘What you asked me to do,’ he replied. ‘There’s a good chance they know we’re coming, so you might want to bring that crossbow up here, Einon.’
He turned back to Kerin. ‘I’d stand to the side if I were you,’ he muttered. ‘That way they’ll shoot Einon first.’
Kerin pressed herself against the wall. Sais touched some of the symbols on the right-hand side of the rectangle. The pattern changed, with more symbols appearing at the end of the currently displayed ones. The pattern became brighter. Then it disappeared.
The door slid to one side.
For a moment, everyone stood still. Kerin heard a strange sound, a faint peep-peep-peep, and smelled something sweet and rotten on the air.
Sais ran into the chamber, brandishing his crossbow. Einon and Urien did not move.
She could not leave Sais to face the threat alone. After a moment’s hesitation she charged in after him.
She found herself in another large, round room. But unlike the testing chamber, the ceiling here was not much higher than in a normal room, giving the place an oppressive air. The room was dominated by a half-circle of odd-looking black objects, like great boxes with bulging tops and glowing lights on the end, large enough for a person to lie in. These strange boxes were arranged on a circular platform in the middle of the room. From the very centre, a thin column of silver disappeared into darkness - the Edefyn Arian. The boxes must go all the way around the base of the Silver Thread. There had to be fifty of them on the platform in all.
Sais was chasing an orange-robed figure round the far side of the ring of boxes.
Kerin skidded to a halt, and looked around for the remaining Escori. He stood further round the wall, beside a panel like the one outside the door. The section of wall above it was smooth and covered in a complex pattern of lights of many colours. He had one hand raised to touch the lights, though he was looking at her. A moment later Einon and Urien ran through the door. Urien looked grave, Einon wild-eyed.
As soon as they had entered the chamber, the door slid shut again. Kerin thought of a hunter’s trap, catching a fox.
The Escori by the wall drew back his hand at the same time as Einon raised his crossbow.
Urien’s shout - ‘No!’ - rung out as the Escori slammed his fist into the lights.
A moment later, he screamed and fell over.
‘Einon!’ bellowed Urien.
‘I’m, ah, I’m sorry, Escori! I panicked!’
Kerin ran over to the fallen man. The hand he had smashed the lights with had tiny pieces of coloured glass embedded in it, and bled freely. His other hand was wrapped around the crossbow bolt sticking out of his thigh. From the look of the blood pumping through his clenched fingers, this was a far more serious wound. Kerin knelt next to him. He blinked up at her, confused. ‘Who?’ he muttered.
‘Lie still. I can help you.’ She got her knife out and started ripping into the hem of her skirt. She had to slow the blood-flow or the man would die.
‘What have you done, Sefion?’
Kerin looked up to see Urien standing over them, his face showing a mixture of pity and horror.
Her patient blinked and focused on the standing Escori. ‘Made sure you receive Her judgment,’ he whispered hoarsely.
Kerin managed to tear a strip from her skirt. Coloured threads, the remains of her embroidery, hung from the fabric. It would have to do. She started to ease it under Escori Sefion’s leg. ‘Who—?’ he murmured again, staring at her.
‘Let her tend you,’ said Urien softly. Kerin suspected he knew, as she did, that this man was most likely doomed. She began to form a prayer to Turiach, then stopped. Somewhere in all the wild talk and the ritual and the fear, she had lost her faith. Maybe it was when Sais confirmed that her son was being taken from her to serve others’ terrible schemes, or the way she saw apparent miracles controlled by a mortal’s touch; perhaps the last straw was seeing Sais’s easy mastery of the door puzzle. Whatever the cause, at some point, she had changed. She no longer believed her prayers would be answered.
Sefion looked back at Urien, though the fallen Escori’s gaze had already clouded. He gave a laugh that turned into a cough. ‘I have been true to the Skymothers,’ he croaked. ‘I do not fear death.’
Kerin tied the fabric off. The pool of red had already seeped out to wet her knees. The flow was slowing, though she suspected that had more to do with the Escori’s failing heart than with her skill.
She looked up to see Sais approaching, preceded by the Escori of Medelwyr. Sais had his crossbow pointed at the other man. Einon had lowered his own weapon and stood, his face stricken, staring at Urien’s back, as though waiting for his Escori to turn round and tell him what to do.
Kerin looked back at Sefion, whose eyes had closed. She had done all she could. She stood up and wiped off the worst of the blood on her tattered skirt. Urien, his lips pressed tight, made the circle over Sefion, then turned away. He strode towards Prysor, who looked less confident than his dying companion.
Sais, keeping an eye on the pair of them, began to move round towards Kerin.
His voice harsh, Urien asked, ‘Where is Idwal?’
The other Escori flinched, then raised his chin. ‘He is dead. As will you be when the Cariad returns.’
‘Where is She now, then?’
Prysor looked away. ‘Her Divinity awaits rebirth,’ he said. ‘She will return in glory, bringing the red rain, and all will be well.’
Kerin very much doubted that.
‘Then why the deception?’ asked Urien. ‘Why have we been bowing down to a mortal woman for all these years? Why has the Beloved Daughter of Heaven not been reborn already?’
Sais reached Kerin. ‘I need to look at those controls on the wall behind you,’ he whispered.
She stood aside so he could get to the smashed lights and now-dim panel.
‘You should not question her will,’ said Prysor. He sounded like he was on the verge of questioning it himself.
‘I do not want too, but your actions - the three of you - have forced me to do so!’ said Urien. ‘Tell me what is really going on.’
‘I - all right. The time is near: you can do nothing to change what happens now, so you may as well know the truth,’ said Prysor. ‘It happened nearly six years ago. We had not seen her Divinity for some days. Eventually we crossed the chasm in the testing hall. We had to get guards to bring planks, as we knew nothing of how the Cariad had made the bridge appear. We found her in her bed, as though she slept. But we could not wake her. She was dead. At that moment I felt - I felt as though Creation had been swallowed by the Abyss. For the Escori of Carunwyd, that was the end. His heart had always been weak and it gave out, then and there.’
‘Why did you not tell us this, me and Idwal!’ said Urien.
Above her, Sais was muttering to himself. Suddenly he darted away, towards the door.
‘Because she forbade it - even in death her will lives on. When we saw her lying there, we felt the world change around us, like a door opening in our minds. We knew this was not the end, merely part of the cycle of the Cariad’s existence. Knowledge only she had held before flooded into us, as though part of her entered our souls, to be kept until her rebirth; which, we now knew, would come when the winnowing times returned. It was our sacred duty to keep the secret until then. We selected a woman we thought would be a good substitute until her Divinity’s rebirth. We did not choose wisely, as she has been . . . difficult. No matter, all will be well when the Cariad returns.’
‘So we must hope,’ murmured Urien.
Sais, over at the door, suddenly said, ‘
Shit!’
Everyone turned to look at him.
‘I think we’re locked in,’ he announced. He nodded at Prysor. ‘Unless you’re registered on this palmlock.’
Prysor looked down his nose at Sais then turned and addressed Urien. ‘I have no idea what this peasant is talking about,’ he said.
Urien said, ‘Are we locked in? Did Sefion somehow stop the operation of the door?’
Prysor looked uncomfortable. ‘The means to open the door from inside is somewhat more complicated than the simple puzzle that allows entry. Sefion has destroyed that mechanism.’
‘This can unlock it too.’ Sais pointed at another panel, small and plain, about the size of a hand. ‘For the right person.’
‘Can it?’ Urien asked Prysor.
‘Touch it and see!’ said Prysor.
Sais shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. I’ve seen these before. If there’s no cell-match, then depending on how the security’s set . . . well, on the highest setting you only get one try.’
‘Who is this madman, and what gibberish is he spouting?’ muttered Prysor.
Sais said, ‘So, Prysor, are you on the guest list?’
‘I think,’ said Urien, ‘that my rather strange companion is asking whether your touch will open this door.’
Prysor shook his head. ‘Only the hand of Heaven can open the way. And though I expect to be rewarded when the Cariad is reborn, your fates will not be so good.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Sais. ‘Well, Prysor here already admitted to me that the carousel goes up automatically. He was expecting to hang around here for the day, praying and meditating while he waited for it to come back. Except now we’re all locked in with him, and when the carousel comes back, it’ll have the Cariad in it, and while she might want to reward him for his faithful service, I suspect he’s right about her not being so pleased to see the rest of us.’
‘Master Sais,’ said Urien, ‘though I find your speech most interesting, I am having some trouble working out what you mean. I do not know the word automatically. And what is this carousel?’
‘Sorry, yeah, I was just—well, panicking, actually. “Automatically” means there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it. And the “carousel” is that.’ He pointed at the strange circle of boxes. ‘The sacred ring that goes up the Silver Thread carrying all the Consorts.’
Kerin had not grasped all the conversation, though she knew that they were trapped and in trouble. But when Sais indicated the boxes, she remembered in a guilty rush why she was here. ‘Is my son over there?’ she said, speaking to Prysor, and pointing at the thing Sais had called the ‘carousel’.
‘Your son - the Consort? Aye.’
Kerin started to run towards the boxes. ‘Which one is he in?’ she shouted. Though they may be doomed, she would not let Damaru be used by their enemies. She would fight them with her son by her side.
‘The two Consorts who were found worthy have only just entered the sacred sleep,’ said Prysor stiffly.
‘Where is he?’ She was almost at the ring of boxes now. They were larger than she had thought. She could see no way of opening them.
‘One of the chambers with amber lights. He will be in there.’ Then she heard him add more quietly, ‘Urien, can you not stop this woman?’
Behind her, the Escori of Frythil muttered, ‘Prysor, I suspect very few forces in Creation can stop this woman.’ She might have laughed, had she not been so worried.
Each box had a panel of clear glass set in the top. To see inside she had to climb on the box itself. A step had been provided for this very purpose. She looked in through the window, straining to see the figure within. The light was bad; she found herself squinting to make out details - and saw skin stretched tight over bones, wide-open eyes rotted in their sockets. The box contained a corpse.
She screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sais looked up at Kerin’s scream. ‘What’s wrong?’ he called.
‘I - there is a dead body in here!’ said Kerin, backing away.
He went over to Kerin, watched by the three priests. He shouldn’t have started using jargon with them, but after weeks of mud and wood and stone, the bright, clean lines of inset screens and comaboxes suddenly reminded him of the world he belonged in.
The puzzle to open the door to the Sanctaith Glan had been pathetically simple: a ten-digit keypad with a minus sign above it, and next to it a child’s sum:
19 - 30 =
Even as he’d typed out ‘-11’, he wondered at how easy this was. He should have known getting out would be harder - perhaps, now Sefion had smashed the lock, impossible. The idea of being locked in here when a vengeful Sidhe came down from orbit made his balls shrivel.
There was an alternative. It wasn’t a full harvest - several of the comaboxes had dark telltales. But given the carousel would be unloaded into the hold of a Sidhe ship, hitching a ride in an empty box wouldn’t be his first choice.
The comabox Kerin had looked into showed green telltales. The occupant was on ice until the Sidhe picked them up. The next three along had amber lights, indicating that the stasis cycle was underway. The boxes were an odd design, but used standard principles. He just needed to work out how to reverse the process.
‘It’s all right, Kerin,’ he said, ‘that’s not Damaru. He’s in one of the ones with the amber lights. I can get him out.’
‘Of course, the Escori did say!’ She checked the control panel on the end of the next box round, then stepped up to look in the observation window. ‘Tis too dim! I cannot see who this is.’
The trio of priests had approached the carousel and now watched with a mixture of alarm and interest.
Sais called over to them, ‘Prysor, which one of these boxes is the Consort from Dangwern in?’
‘You must not . . . you must not profane the sacred sleeping chambers!’
Sais resisted the temptation to retort Or what? Einon still held a loaded crossbow, even if he seemed to have forgotten it. He had no intention of letting any more innocents than necessary go up to the Setting Sun. He looked at Kerin and whispered, ‘I’ll wake them all.’
She nodded, though her gaze kept going back to the box with the body in.
Sais called, ‘Prysor, did you know that one of the Consorts is dead?’
‘That is not a Consort,’ said Prysor defiantly.
‘Then who is it?’
Prysor said nothing.
Beside him, Urien asked, ‘Prysor, is that Idwal?’
Sais turned back to the control panel; as long as the priests were talking they wouldn’t be shooting him in the back.
Prysor said, ‘Idwal does not rest in sacred slumber! He defiled this place by his presence - as do these peasants!’
‘So Idwal got in here?’ asked Urien. ‘He solved the puzzle, did he not?’
‘Aye, though we later destroyed the blasphemous scribblings that gave him the knowledge to so do!’ Prysor said, then added nastily, ‘And I believe Sefion tried to cut off the forbidden knowledge at its source.’
Sais glanced over his shoulder to see Einon looking nauseous.
A soft ping made him turn back to the comabox. Assuming these boxes worked like those he was used to, he had just halted the stasis cycle. Next, he needed to reverse it. If he screwed up now, he could kill the box’s occupant. Despite the need to concentrate, he found himself listening to the priests.
‘But what happened to Idwal?’ asked Urien.
Prysor said, ‘When we could not find him, we realised that he had managed to enter the Sanctaith Glan. We found him lying dead by the door, struck down by the vengeance of the Cariad.’
Sais was glad he hadn’t tried to test the door security. Looked like he’d guessed right: having the wrong DNA was enough to fry you if you tried the palmlock. Idwal’s body must have been in here a while: the place still smelled of death. He wondered in passing why the chamber had two independent unlocking mechanisms - a palmlock and the panel that Sefion had destr
oyed.
Behind him Prysor was saying ‘—burnt his body in the testing hall where no one would disturb the ceremony. Alden wanted to take him outside so his soul might be freed under the sky, but then we would have had to declare the death. Sefion said that was too much of a risk. The Cariad needs us to keep the Tyr stable until she returns, reborn.’
If only you knew, thought Sais. Under his nimble fingers, the amber light went off. Got it. Now the system should start bringing the occupant round.
‘Then we return to the original question,’ said Urien. From his tone it sounded like Urien’s respect for his fellow Escori was long gone. ‘Who is the dead body?’
Sais didn’t hear the answer; Prysor pitched his voice too low. He stood up, ready to move onto the next box.
‘Can I help?’ whispered Kerin.
‘I don’t think so. Just stay close.’
He heard Einon exclaim, ‘That cannot be!’
Before he started on the second box Sais called out, ‘What can’t be?’
The priests looked up at him. He didn’t expect an answer, but Urien, looking startled, said, ‘Prysor says that is the Cariad. The real one.’ He turned to the other Escori. Sais bent down and got to work, keeping half an ear on the conversation.
Prysor sounded halfway between defiance and panic. ‘Idwal had a light with him; he must have checked the sleeping chambers. On finding one contained the Cariad, he attempted to wake her, but he lacked our holy knowledge. He disrupted the processes that kept her uncorrupted. When we found what he had done we tried to undo the damage, but it was too late. She had - she had already begun to decay.’
‘Like an earthly mortal,’ said Urien, his voice thoughtful. ‘I wonder: how will the Skymothers react to finding their Beloved child returned as a rotten corpse?’
‘That thought has never left my mind!’ Prysor wailed. ‘Every prayer I have uttered since we found Idwal in here has begged for their forgiveness and understanding.’
Now Sais knew what he was doing, reversing the stasis was a lot easier. He moved round to the third and final box.
Prysor continued, ‘We argued how this could be, the three of us. I think that was when Alden began to lose his hold on sense.’
