by Sarah Rayne
But it was not raw magic, it was not uncut sorcery that was slithering at the core of the shadows.
Theo knew the soft rustlings that enchantments made before they were formed and moulded and shaped. She knew about the gentle whisperings and about the sudden silken movements, and about the silvery scurryings and the darting lights, and the glancing notes of sweet music that touched the air and then vanished.
The sounds she was hearing now were none of these things. Theodora stood very still and tried to see into the deep shadows and tried to hear the sounds coming from the far end of the Chamber.
Scratching sounds. Cold sounds. Sounds that made you think of words like claws and that made you think of things like slithery tails and inward-slanting red eyes. And something else … Something that was scaly and leathery and that might be finned as well; something that might have webbed hands and feet, and horrid lidless eyes; something that would come loping out of the dark on its great long legs with reaching, clutching hands that would wind about your neck and cover your eyes, so that you could not see what was going to happen to you …
Every one of the stories told by Nechtan tumbled through Theo’s mind. The Dark Lords and the Fomoire, forever trying to find a way into the real Ireland, forever covetous of the Porphyry Palace itself … The Lord of Chaos and his terrible henchmen who were called Murder and Anarchy and Misrule. It might even be the Fisher King, the huge repulsive piscine creature, who had squirmed out of his dank ocean palace nearly a century earlier, and who had been vanquished, but who had vowed with his dying breath to return:
‘My spawn will return to destroy those who have vanquished me …’
Supposing the Fisher King had found a way to return … ?
Theodora drew in a deep breath, and in the same moment a soft, slimy, cold voice close by, said, ‘Come over here, little girl.’
*
The banquet that had cost so much was very nearly disintegrating into chaos.
Cerball, who had given up trying to compute the exact cost of it all, had tried to persuade everyone to go along up to the dying Nechtan’s bedchamber before they began the ancient Succession Ritual. Visiting the Head of the Amaranths for the last time was something they all ought to do, said Cerball, tucking his chins firmly into his neck, and trying not to see Himself of Mugain helping himself and his immediate neighbours to yet another flagon of Cerball’s best tawnyfire wine. But when it came to it, visiting a dying sorcerer was not something anyone was very enthusiastic about. Laigne, Cerball’s wife, had said at once that Echbel could not go because he was far too sensitive to watch anyone dying, and Great-aunt Fuamnach gave this her unexpected support, because dying was something people ought to do quietly and as inconspicuously as possible.
‘We’ll have the procession to the Cadence Tower,’ said the Mugain of Moire who could not be doing with deathchamber rituals. ‘We’ll go along altogether, and Cerball and I will pronounce the Ritual. As Elders,’ he said, in case anyone should have forgotten this. ‘And then,’ said the Mugain, firmly, ‘we’ll all come back up here for a drop of mulled wine.’
This necessitated everyone getting up from the table, which took rather a long time because the Mugain had to find the five-branched torch, and then Rumour had to be prised away from the bevy of young sorcerers who had gathered admiringly about her, and several cousins were found to have gone off exploring the palace, so that they had to be rounded up. And then, just as they were all set to start out, Cerball dropped the Ritual, and everyone had to crawl under the table to retrieve it, and it was finally discovered with somebody’s soup splashes on it, so that it had to be sponged off, and it all took time. It was not at all in keeping with something as solemn and ancient as a Succession Ritual to splash it with soup, and it was none of it in keeping with the dignity that should attend the dying of the Head of the Royal Sorcerers. Laigne, who liked to think she was a firm but fair-minded mother, was very glad to think that Theodora was too young to be present at the banquet, while as for that hussy Rumour, Laigne told Cerball that the wanton creature would enter the Porphyry Palace again only under the most extreme of necessities, and probably only over Laigne’s dead body.
‘I would not soil my best slippers with the dust of the place, if you want the truth,’ said Rumour, who had actually had the effrontery to present herself in one of her scarlet silk gowns with swirling tongues woven into it and precious little top to it. She smiled in a catlike fashion through her long green eyelashes and twitched the silken skirts of the indecorous gown about her ankles, sending out several hissing sounds as she did so, causing several people to back away in alarm because Rumour had the nasty way of summoning the Whisperers when you least expected it. The Whisperers, who had served Rumour ever since anyone could remember, were nasty, ten-inch-high dwarfs, with grinning faces and huge, flapping ears, who scurried under people’s feet and told terrible stories behind their hands, and who went by names like Slander and Scurrilousness and Lies. Rumour could summon them with mischievous facility and, as Cerball said, they were always extraordinarily ugly and inflicted quite the nastiest of barbs in people’s minds. You did not really want to hear one of Rumour’s dwarfs scurrying about, telling the entire Amaranthine clan that your wife had spent all your money, or that your best friend was bedding down with your youngest daughter, or that you yourself were inches from a debtors’ prison.
It was the kind of thing that Rumour was good at. ‘Well, she has plenty of practice,’ said Great-aunt Fuamnach, crossly. ‘Doesn’t she bring those nasty creatures everywhere she goes?’
‘As guards, dearest Great-aunt,’ said Rumour, who had indeed summoned the Whisperers, and had sent half a dozen Gossips dancing about the floor, with the solemn purpose of informing the company that the Mugain was the next best thing to impotent, and that Herself was seeking consolation with grooms and gardeners, and the occasional vegetable marrow.
‘I am bereft and alone in the world,’ said Rumour, promptly deriving as much enjoyment out of the situation as was possible. She clasped green-tipped hands which matched her eyelashes to her breast. ‘I am alone and unprotected, and my poor loyal Whisperers are my only armour against a cruel world.’
Laigne started to say that Rumour had always been a shocking liar, when Rumour suddenly turned and fixed her eyes on the door, and said, in a voice sharpened with interest, ‘My dear cousins, it seems we have an uninvited guest at the feast.’ Framed in the doorway at the far end of the great banqueting hall was the cowled figure of a black-robed monk.
*
Andrew had approached the gleaming Palace of the Amaranth Sorcerers with extreme caution. He was not especially awed by it because he had seen several such places in England. His own monastery was a huge sprawling stone building; once, he thought, the stronghold of some long-dead Saxon chieftain, which St Augustine’s followers had found decayed and almost derelict, and had had renewed and rebuilt. He was accustomed to the English castles and fortresses, and he was beginning to be accustomed to the Irish ones.
Because he dared leave no place unexplored if he was to fulfil the strange mission laid on him by Brother Stephen, he must go up to the doors of every towering fortress, every dark stronghold in Ireland’s wild, pagan land. He must knock on the gates of the palaces and the mansions and the castles and request admittance. And, once inside, once accepted as a guest, he must question and search and listen.
But he had not bargained for pagan Ireland being so beautiful and so darkly seductive. More than once the thought that it would be a pity to lose the myth-soaked religions and the time-crusted rituals flickered dangerously on his mind. But he had been warned about this, and he was here not to convert but to fulfil a quest; he had been chosen above all the others to capture the traitor.
The traitor. The renegade. The wild, rebellious Monk who had broken free of the cloistered monastic world.
Andrew knew a little of the creature’s history, for when he had entered the Order, young and idealistic and fervent, the
story was already a dark legend, a warp in the gentle aqua-tints of the monks’ short history.
The legend had begun quietly; where does a legend begin anyway? thought Andrew. At first there had been only strands and fragments: whispers of greed and lust. But the mission monks, doggedly preaching their message of love and light across Ireland, faithfully sending back word of their progress, had been at one in their accounts. The Monk was somewhere in Ireland; he was serving the pagan gods. Darker, wilder tales had shaled on with the years. Blood-hungers and human sacrifices. The sinister bartering of souls.
Brother Stephen had feared that the tales would harm their cause. Perhaps they would kill the burgeoning shoots of Christianity before they had time to unfurl, withering them like frost touching too-early crocuses. Christianity would be doomed before it had even rooted, and Ireland’s conversion would be lost. It could not be allowed to happen.
One of their number must somehow follow the trail of greed and lust that the Monk had strewn across Ireland. It would be difficult and it might be dangerous, for pagan Ireland was steeped in ancient beliefs, and although they knew paganism to be wrong, it did not stop it from being tempting. Whoever was chosen for the mission might find not only his body imperilled, but also his soul …
The mission would be hard because the Monk’s name had been erased from the monastery’s memory. Brother Stephen’s predecessor, taking his lead from the harsh, unyielding anchorites, had decreed it. The creature’s very existence must be struck from their records. It must be as if he had never existed.
It would make the quest doubly difficult, said Stephen, his old shrewd eyes on Andrew. But it would not be impossible. And if pagan Ireland was to be converted, it was their responsibility to find the one who was damaging their cause.
The creature whose real name was lost, but who was known throughout the land as the Black Monk of Torach.
Chapter Two
The Amaranths had never, so far as they could remember, welcomed a monk into their midst before.
The Porphyry Palace had always been known for its lavish and unquestioning hospitality, of course; Nechtan had been firm about this, because it was a great Amaranth tradition that no creature — Human, Beast or otherwise — was ever turned from the doors. He had said it behoved all sorcerers — well, all Men — to open their doors to pilgrims and travellers, and to listen to the stories of their travels. It broadened the mind, said Nechtan, who liked to hear about other ways of life, and had even entertained druids and would not listen to the people who said darkly that druidism was beginning to incorporate some rather odd customs, and was it true that the druids were reviving the practice of Human Sacrifice for Beltane?
The young monk who had come to the great western gate was quiet and extremely courteous, and rather self-effacing.
Questioned by Cerball and the Mugain, who said the procession and the Ritual could wait another few minutes, he explained that he was travelling alone, and that he was what was called a ‘mission monk’, which meant he had to travel as widely as possible to teach people about his religion. He said this rather with an air of watching closely to see how it would be received. Probably he had encountered some hostile receptions on his travels, because not everybody was favourably inclined towards monks, who were apt to lean dourly towards such things as fasting and silence, and even — it was rumoured — celibacy.
But Cerball and the Mugain were interested in Andrew; they had heard of monks, but never met one. The Mugain said this method of telling about the new Eastern religion was called ‘preaching’, and although they mightn’t want to embrace the queer, stark practices of Christianity — well, they did not want to embrace them at all — it did not prevent them from being courteous.
Also, said the Mugain craftily, hadn’t the High King himself held a meeting with several monks, and wasn’t that sufficient to see which way the tide of belief was turning? You went with the prevailing wind, said the Mugain, and neglected to refer to the fact that the meeting had in fact taken place on the Plain of the Fal, where the wily High King had known he would have Ireland’s old tested forces at his back just in case the new beliefs might be a touch necromantic. The Plain of the Fal was so imbued with Ireland’s own tried and trusted magic, that any new and dubious sorcery the monks might be planning on smuggling in would not stand a chance.
And so Andrew was given a place at table, and served food and wine. He was an easy and easily pleased guest; he ate sparingly but politely, praising the baked carp and asking only that his wine should be diluted with a little water. He listened to their discourse with what Herself of Mugain said was plainly a genuine interest, and did not seem to feel it necessary to preach, although several people noticed with interest that he traced some kind of symbol on the breast of his robe before eating and murmured a few soft words of some kind of brief ritual.
The sorcerers allowed themselves to be assembled into line for the ceremonial procession. The Succession Ritual had to be invoked over the legendary Well of Segais, which nobody present had seen, on account of it being a very long time indeed since the Ritual had last been chanted. Great-aunt Fuamnach said it was five hundred years, but nobody believed this because not even Nechtan could live that long.
The Well of Segais was situated in the bowels of the dark, legend-haunted Cadence Tower, the grim and sinister Tur Baibeil that Nechtan had raised from a mixture of Amaranth sorcery and ordinary prosaic Human building many decades earlier. The Well was so deep it was said to stretch down to the fabled underwater Cities of the sidh, and might even come out in the terrible core of the Black, Ireland itself, but this was another of the legends that might very well turn out not to be true.
But to discover Nechtan’s true successor, they would have to enter the Tower itself, they would have to open up the huge, jagged portcullis that had been sealed for almost a century.
No one had dared approach the Cadence Tower since the dark and evil Fomoire had come pouring and dancing out of it, singing their terrible Hunting Song, capturing Humans and flaying their skins.
Nobody knew what might live at the Tower’s centre.
*
Standing in the Sorcery Chamber, with the evil whispery thing watching her from the shadows, was quite the worst moment Theodora had ever known. It was the nastiest thing that had ever happened to her in her entire six years and a bit.
Whatever had crept after her was something that was very bad indeed. It might be something that had got in from the Dark Ireland and been hiding in the passages, waiting for her. It might even have been waiting for somebody to come along and open the Silver Door so it could get at the Looms. Theo was very frightened indeed, but it was important not to show it, and it was important to think what was best to do.
It was clearly impossible to cross the black puddly shadows to reach the door. The shadows were being cast by the creature: long, distorted blacknesses; and so Theo knew it was standing quite near to her.
What I had better do, said Theodora to herself, is to stay here, and try to find out what it wants. It was comforting to glance up at the Silver Looms, and see the faint gleam of life and remember how Great-grandfather had said that the Looms never truly slept. They’re awake, said Theodora, firmly. They’re awake, and I think that if I tried very hard indeed, I could make them spin, and banish the something for good.
This was a cheering thought; Theodora held on to it very firmly and remembered, quite suddenly, that Great-grandfather had said that she would find spinning the Looms quite extraordinarily easy. He had said it with one of his mischievous chuckles, as if it was something that might not please people. But Theo held on to Great-grandfather’s chuckle now, and she held on to his belief that she could work the Looms.
She moved into the centre of the Chamber so that the light would fall directly on her and the something would see that she was perfectly at home here. There was the scuttling sound again, and Theodora caught the flash of movement. Had she? Yes, something dark and crouching. It was wa
tching her.
‘Of course I am watching you,’ said the voice, and Theo shuddered because it was a dreadfully cold, horridly slimy voice. It made you think of ancient sluggish rivers with silted beds, and of dank under-sea palaces where water-light rippled greenly on the cold, mouldering walls …
Theodora said, quite loudly, ‘Who are you?’ and at once there was an evil, bubbling chuckle.
But when the voice spoke again it only said, ‘A creature from another world who seeks its freedom from a terrible bewitchment.’ The shadows moved again, and quite suddenly the voice was much nearer. ‘You look like a little girl who might help me,’ said the creature, and this time Theo caught a glimpse of a great dark shape with a bulging forehead and pale glittery eyes and elongated arms and legs that ended in webbed fingers and toes.
Something that might once have dwelled in green ocean palaces with the cold ocean forever lapping against the walls …
‘If I am to help you,’ said Theo, carefully, because it would be as well to be a bit cunning about this; ‘if I am to help you, I should need first to know who you are.’
A pause. Then, ‘In the place where I have lived, I am called the Gristlen,’ said the slurry, bubbly voice.
‘Yes?’
‘If I had another name, I have forgotten it,’ said the voice, but there was a slithery slyness in its tone.
‘But what are you?’ said Theodora, peering into the shadows, not really wanting to see a creature called a Gristlen, but thinking it might be better to see it than imagine what it looked like.
There was a pause, as if the Gristlen was considering its answer. Then, ‘I am a cursed creature,’ it said, and there was another movement, as if it might be moving closer. ‘But I have dwelled in many places. I have sucked dry many places,’ it said with sudden relish. And then, ‘But I was cursed by the Dark Lords,’ said the Gristlen, ‘and so I wear the carapace of their punishment.’ It stopped and appeared to wait for her response.
