by Sarah Rayne
They reached a small, galleried landing with heavy wooden balustrades and a wide, curving stair that led to the lower part of the Castle. Flaring wall-sconces and flambeaux gave out a flickering red radiance, and there were narrow leaded windows, through which thin slivers of light crept.
At the centre of the gallery was a monstrous, bulbous-eyed thing, shell-backed, but with its soft under-body somehow made up of licking, sucking tongues and gaping, toothless maws and writhing, wriggling, wormlike brain sacs.
The Draoicht Spiaire.
Chaos’s dark and hungry Spell of Spies.
*
Theo and Rumour stopped at once, and Theo felt the thought slice her mind from Rumour: it has not been following us at all, it has been waiting for us … And knew in the same instant that the Draoicht Spiaire must be an immensely powerful and strongly necromantic spell.
The Draoicht Spiaire was formed a little like a huge crab or a lobster. Theo, who had sometimes been allowed to watch the cooks at the Porphyry Palace preparing for a banquet, had seen them cast lobsters live into vats of boiling water, or crack open the shells of the small, well-fleshed crabs that had been caught on Ireland’s coasts, scooping out the soft, bright red meat beneath. She had not really liked watching, and she did not really like shell-backed creatures that scuttled and darted and waved their stalklike eyes at you.
The Draoicht Spiaire was exactly like a monstrous lobster or a crab. The hard shell, the carapace that covered it, was like a monstrous inverted saucer; it was shiny and veined with thin black ducts, all of them pulsating, as if black blood coursed through it, which might be true, because Great-grandfather Nechtan had always said that demons had black blood …
Beneath the great, black-veined shell was the creature’s soft body, made up of writhing, slopping mouths and tongues for the telling of secrets, and huge, deformed ears for the hearing of them … And worst of all, it had dozens of tiny, wriggling, wormlike sacs that were its brains, and that would absorb the terrible secrets of its victims and store the sucked-out thoughts and the small private longings and desires and ambitions and fears and plans …
It had small, jointed legs — Theo thought there were four of them, although there might have been more. It was so dreadful that she could not look very closely. But as it moved, there was the hard sound of claws ringing out on the timber floors, and as it watched them, it scratched the ground as if excited. Long pincer-like arms came out from its body, jointed very nearly like elbows, but ending in huge, wickedly sharp claws that made scissor motions, snipping the air. They would scoop you up effortlessly, and they would squeeze you between the great talons until you were mangled to a pulp …
Theo gulped and tried to remember that they were going to defeat this thing, Rumour would defeat it, because she was strong and clever and it was impossible that she could ever be vanquished.
Stalks protruded from the Draoicht Spiaire’s carapace, with swivelling searching eyes like glutinous globes at the ends. There were dozens of these stalk-eyes, rearing up on bright red, gristly-looking antennae, waving and peering.
The hundred eyes of the monster that never sleeps …
The creature was the height of a Man; its shell was on a level with Rumour’s eyes, and it was as wide as a wide-sized bed. It was crouching in front of them, the stalks that supported its eyes waving as it studied them, the lipless, toothless mouths wet and greedy, the repulsive brain sacs wriggling and squirming.
As it crouched, watching them, its body crepitating with horrid relish, there was a really terrible moment when Theo felt Rumour’s courage hesitate. This was so truly remarkable that she looked up at Rumour, and saw that her face was whiter than Theo could ever remember seeing it, and that her eyes were huge with fear.
But then Rumour moved; she approached the horrid, scuttling, crablike thing, and said, quite calmly and quietly, ‘You will allow us to pass, if you please.’ And stood her ground, and waited.
The Draoicht Spiaire gave its monstrous chuckle, and its eyes swivelled on the glistening, scarlet stalks. It inspected Rumour, the eyes moving up and down her body, and smacked its repulsive lips as it did so, and reaching out with its elongated pincer-arms.
‘A tasty morsel of gossip for my Master,’ it said, and its voice was as repulsive as the rest of it: thick and gloating, so that you knew it would be able to see all your secrets and all the private thoughts and hopes and all the silly small nastinesses, and it would spread them out in the light and chuckle over them, and perhaps ponder on how it could use them to make you feel ashamed.
Rumour walked towards the Spiaire, holding her hands upwards, the palms turned outwards; as she neared it, it said, in its evil, clogged voice that came from not just one of its many slopping mouths but all of them, ‘You are brave, Sorceress, to approach me of your own volition.’
Rumour said, softly, ‘I am curious to know more of you, for I think we have never had dealings with one another, you and I.’
The Draiocht Spiaire snickered. ‘You employ gentler servants than you would find here, Madame Rumour,’ it said. ‘Although it is true that we have sometimes had a little in common.’
‘You know my name,’ said Rumour, as if she was holding a perfectly ordinary conversation with a perfectly ordinary person she had only just met.
‘Who does not know of the Amaranth sorceress, Rumour?’ said the Draoicht Spiaire. ‘Who does not know the lady who boasts that she has had a hundred lovers.’ It moved a little closer, with its grotesque, scuttling movement, its small legs scrabbling at the ground. From where she was standing, Theo could smell its stench: rotting meat and bad fish.
Rumour appeared not to notice it. She stayed where she was, her head tilted, as if she was finding it all of immense interest, and as if she had not noticed the truly sickening stench. The creature reared up a little, waving its short forelegs as it did so, and they saw the squirming underside of the shell with monstrous clarity. It gave its fearsome chuckle.
‘You would like to see a few of my secrets?’ it said. ‘You would like me to show you the things I suck from my victims and keep inside until they may be of use?’
Rumour said, quite normally and politely, ‘I am always interested in sorcery,’ and the Draoicht Spiaire chuckled again.
It reared up even further, the pale flesh palpitating with evil inner life. The brain sacs were at the centre, grey lumpish organs that writhed with a life of their own. As Rumour and Theo watched, the Draoicht Spiaire began to retch and vomit, and several of the repulsive grey membranous sacs opened and spewed out the most remarkable river of fluids and lights and fragments that Theo had ever seen.
Green, slimy runnels of bile, and puddles of crimson gore with tiny bony claws in them; slopping yellow creaminesses, curdled and sour-looking like milk that has turned … Here and there were tiny black and silver lights that winked and coruscated and half swum, half scuttled in and out of the viscous fluids … Theo gulped and pushed a clenched fist into her mouth.
Rumour stood her ground, and Theo understood that they must somehow get past the Spiaire; they could not turn back, because behind them were the chambers and the galleries and the halls of Chaos’s people. They must somehow get past this creature and down to the central hall and out and away.
Rumour was looking at the grisly kaleidoscope that had spurted from the Draoicht Spiaire, and she said, very softly, ‘The bounty of the gods … All there.’
‘All there, Sorceress,’ said the creature, and Theo heard that its voice was phlegmy and mucoid, exactly as it would have been if it had just been very sick in the ordinary way, from eating too much or from tainted food.
‘All there,’ echoed Rumour. ‘The green bile of jealousy, and the scarlet gobs of lust …’
‘And the brittle ivory bones of ambition, and the crimson-tipped claws of hatred,’ chuckled the Draoicht Spiaire. ‘There is the purple and black of despair-can you see that, Madame Sorceress?"
The horrid bulbous eyes swivelled, and Rumour sa
id softly, ‘I see it, but the emotion called despair is not something I recognise,’ and Theo looked at her because there was suddenly something wistful and something quite unbearably sad in Rumour’s voice, as if she might be remembering something that somebody had once said to her, and as if the memory was infinitely precious and overwhelmingly sad.
‘There is the yellow blood of cowardice,’ said the creature. ‘And the scattering, quicksilver Goblins of treachery, for all those who turn traitor have fallen prey to the quicksilver Goblins …’
Rumour said, still in the same distant tone, ‘I see it all.’ And still she did not move, still she stayed where she was, beneath the monstrous necromantic creature who had spewed out the secret torments and the yearnings and the thoughts of its victims.
‘Room for more of them now,’ it said at once, and Theo saw that several of the brain membranes had collapsed and were shrunken and withered. ‘All the more room to suck you dry, Sorceress,’ said the Draoicht Spiaire, and it reared up again, its hundred eyes swivelling and moving, making sickening, glutinous sounds as they did so.
Rumour was standing directly beneath it; it was towering above her, the grinning, mumbling mouths making sucking sounds, as if they were relishing what was ahead; the squirming, collapsed brain sacs becoming agitated.
For they scent food, Sorceress, they scent the desires and the secrets and fears and the ambitions and the plots you have in your mind … They will eat your mind, Sorceress, and your mind will be forever stored in my brains; and I have many brains, Sorceress. I have as many brains as I have eyes to spy with and ears to hear with and lips to whisper secrets to my master with …
It was closing in, it was lowering its shell, and at any minute, at any minute, it would come down on Rumour who was standing limned against the grisly shape.
Rumour was not afraid; she was wary and watchful, but she was caught in the grip of an exhilaration, because she would far rather face an enemy head-on like this and try to pit her strength against it, than to creep through the dark waiting for something to pounce.
At moments of extreme danger, the mind moves with extraordinary speed and clarity, and Rumour’s mind moved like a shard of quicksilver now.
Like Theo, she had seen that they must get past the Spiaire; there was no other way to reach the central hall and the great double doors that led outside.
All her life, Rumour had taken the reckless option. Faced with different courses of action, she had always chosen the audacious way, and sometimes it had worked and sometimes it had not, She was a gambler, a risk-taker and an adventuress.
She would not change now. She would take a huge gamble, an immense risk, and if she was lucky and if the gods were with her, she would talk and bluff and defy her way out of this danger, as she had talked her way out of others.
Because sometimes it worked …
But Theodora must be kept safe.
She eyed the Draoicht Spiaire, and saw that its slopping, gaping mouths were already dripping and dribbling with anticipation, and she shuddered inwardly.
Could the thing be traded with? An offer — some kind of bargain for their safety? And then: could we simply appear to trade with it while I distract its attention?
Trade with what?
And then she remembered how the Spiaire had said, ‘Who does not know the lady who boasts a hundred lovers,’ and how lascivious greed had clotted its voice, and she felt the gamblers’ exhilaration rush through her, because she would try it; she would risk everything on this one desperate chance …
The Spiaire was edging closer, and Rumour saw that it was tensing the gristly, fibrous muscles of its legs, ready to scuttle forwards. Its wavering stalk-eyes peered and grinned, and there was a soft wet squelching sound as they opened and closed.
At any minute it would rear back, and the pincer-like arms would reach for her …
She stood directly in its path and said, loudly and clearly, ‘Draoicht Spiaire. I offer you the ancient Bargain of the Saturnalia,’ and saw at once that she had the creature’s attention.
It said in its thick mucoid voice, ‘I know of the Saturnalia Revelry. But tell me of the Bargain,’ and Rumour heard the question in its voice. Confidence surged into her, because she had succeeded in perplexing it and in holding its attention. She said, ‘I am surprised you do not know of the custom of exchanging gifts to mark the Saturnalia.’ And inched further along the corridor, pushing Theodora before her. Had Theo still the tapestry box? Yes. And the child was understanding, she was moving step by cautious step nearer the stair. Good! thought Rumour. If I can keep the Spiaire’s attention, Theo can get to the stair without it looking round at her. And with luck I can follow her!
She said, in a soft, coaxing voice that would have instantly raised suspicion in the minds of any one of the older Amaranths, ‘Saturnalia is the ancient Winter Solstice at which revelry and unbridled licentiousness takes place.’
‘I know it,’ said the Spiaire, and its stalk-eyes swelled with horrid lust.
Rumour caught the flicker of a movement from Theo as she edged nearer to the stair. But she kept her eyes fixed on the Spiaire, and said, ‘There are Twelve Days of Revelry, and during those Twelve Days, gifts are exchanged.’ And paused, and touched, deep in her mind, the memory of Andrew telling her of how his strange beliefs had allotted the pagan Saturnalia Feasting as their Leader’s birth into the world, and how they celebrated it by exchanging small gifts. Even at this moment of extreme terror she sent up a brief murmur of gratitude to Andrew and to his predecessors who had so cunningly woven the ancient feast into the new belief.
‘I will exchange with you in the way of the Saturnalia now,’ said Rumour.
‘Well?’ It had not moved, but its eyes were full of prurient greed, and Rumour shuddered inwardly. But she said:
‘If you will give us both safe passage through the Castle, I will give you every sexual experience, every moment of physical delight I have ever had.’ She paused. ‘And there have been many of them,’ said Rumour, her voice low and caressing.
The creature laughed. ‘Puny creature,’ it said. ‘I can take them all and devour you, Amaranth.’ It tensed its gristly legs to spring, but Rumour caught a gleam of speculation in its eyes, and thought: exactly as I guessed! It will not bargain, but I have caught its attention. She stood back and said, ‘But can you take them like this, filth! Can you unroll them like a carpet before your master!’ And, lifting her hands, reached for the dazzling skeins that had made up the Tapestry, her own special Spell, the Enchantment she had spun over the years, and with which she had dazzled the necromancers in the banqueting hall.
The memories poured out at once, streaming down from the creeping darknesses above their heads, lighting the shadowy gallery to brilliance, a silken, light-filled carpet that cascaded down to the bare oak floor and unfurled at their feet, perfuming the air with wine and music and passion and firelight … Every lover taken and enjoyed, every sweet, sensual, perfumed night, every shred of soaring delight and mischievous seduction and heady desire.
The remarkable swathes of brilliant passion and love and desire lay at their feet like a great glossy pool of shifting rainbow silk. The Spiaire stared down, its eyes quivering with greed. Beneath the shell, the shrunken brainsacs stirred and began to swell.
‘Yours!’ cried Rumour, her eyes shining with defiance and recklessness, flinging out her hands to point. ‘All yours, Spiaire, to spread at the feet of the Lord of Chaos! To unroll for his pleasure, instead of spewing them up in a torrent of noisome filth!’
She held the creature’s unblinking stare, and felt the beginnings of a great empty coldness. The memories draining, she thought. And I have yielded up so much … Every night of love, every afternoon of passion … And Andrew? said a tiny silvery voice. Have you yielded up the memories of Andrew?
No! cried Rumour in silent agony. No, let me keep that! Let me keep the sweetness and the gentle passion. And then, with an inward submissiveness: but if that is what is neede
d, then I will yield that also.
The Spiaire was staring down at the passion-threaded swathes of living colour and the rainbow pools of delight, and Rumour thought: now! Now, while it is licking its lips over the devouring of everything, and while it is dazzled and ripening with its horrid lust!
Theo was almost at the stair, and Rumour drew in a breath of thankfulness for the child who had understood what to do without being told. The Draoicht Spiaire was bending over the silken, pouring tapestry, its stalk-eyes quivering, its tongues sucking and lapping at the precious carpet of memories, occasionally pausing and shaking itself, as if savouring its strange feast.
If ever there was a moment to follow Theo, if ever there was a moment when the creature would be off its guard, then this surely was the moment. Now! thought Rumour, and felt the soaring exhilaration fill her up as she moved in Theo’s wake.
She was within ten paces of the stair when she felt the fetid, bad-fish stench close about her. The Draoicht Spiaire caught her easily, its pincers scooping her into a gristly, repulsive embrace, the brainsacs opening like blind feeding creatures, ready to suck her mind.
*
The pain was far worse, much more intense than she could have believed possible. It was the worst pain there could ever be in the entire world: a great, screaming scarlet sheet of blood blinding her; a suffocating black cloud crushing her lungs. The thing’s claws were fastened about her and she felt the sharp agony of bones splintering.
I have failed. I have failed because I gambled, and sometimes the gamble works, and sometimes it does not …
She could feel the obscene excitement from the Draoicht Spiaire, and there was a terrible sound, a thick, swallowing sound as the brain sacs fastened on to her.
*
It was important not to give way to fear. It was important to remember that this had been her own choice, her reckless gamble … She had tried to distract the Spiaire and she had failed. Because sometimes it works and sometimes it does not …
But Theo will be safe. Theo and the music …
