Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  The Spiaire gave its clotted mucoid chuckle, and pulled her closer, and she saw the slopping mouths gape again.

  And then it began. The slow steady stream of her life. All of the lovely nights, all of the lovers: all of the different men … Some of them gentle or passionate; some of them humble, or worshipping, or arrogant …

  All of the moonlit nights seen through a heady blur of wine and music and delight; all of the drowsy scented afternoons, when to be between silken sheets with the curtains closed against the world was the most marvellous thing in the world … All of the snow-crusted months of winter when you could build up a fire that would burn all the night so that you could lie entwined on the floor before it, wrapped in thick, warm rugs, drinking wine, eating exotic foods, making love until you slept, exhausted, in your lover’s arms.

  And Andrew. Oh, let it not take Andrew! cried her mind, and then, with sudden calm: but it can never wipe out Andrew. The knowledge and the memory of Andrew and of what he was and what they had shared gave her unexpected strength, and although her face was contorted with pain, she managed to turn her head until she was looking at Theo, and she managed to say, in a clear calm voice, ‘Theo, run. Go now. Down the stairs and away …’ The pincers closed a little more tightly, and Rumour felt the warm wetness of blood soaking her gown. She gasped and her words shut off abruptly.

  Theo was huddled against the wall, her eyes huge with fear. She whispered, ‘No, I can’t leave you …’ and at once Rumour said in a choked, agonised voice:

  ‘You must. Otherwise it will all have been for nothing —’ The words were bitten off again, but Theo had understood. She had understood that, so far from being a marvellous adventure, Rumour had suffered dangers and terrible perils to get into Chaos’s Castle, and that if one of them did not escape, it would all have been worthless. She began cautiously to inch towards the top stair, keeping her back to the wall, her eyes never leaving the Draoicht Spiaire.

  The horrid pulsating sacs were swelling, like water-bags filling up, and Rumour was struggling. Thin weak shards of light touched the darkness about her head, and Theo knew that Rumour was trying to call up power, something that would defeat Chaos’s monstrous servant.

  But it was too late. Rumour’s skin was taking on a pale, waxen look, and her eyes were becoming unfocused. Theo knew that this last reckless gamble had failed. Rumour had tried to distract the Spiaire, she had tried to feed its horrid hungers with her own memories, and it had not worked.

  And now the crablike monster was sucking Rumour of everything; all the secrets and all the innermost wishes and thoughts, and all the yearnings Rumour had ever harboured, and all the good feelings and the bad, and the nice ones and the generous ones and the cross thoughts and the impatient ones. Everything. Chaos would know everything about her when this creature spewed its filth up for him. And Rumour would die. She might already be dead. And if I do not escape, thought Theo, in silent anguish, she will have died for nothing.

  The wriggling membranes of brains were bloated and distended now, and Theo felt nausea rising in her throat, because that was Rumour, it was the real true Rumour, the one who might have taken too many lovers and who might sometimes have been extravagant and reckless and improvident, but who had also been unfailingly kind and ceaselessly generous, and who had never turned her back on a friend or failed to help a victim of ill-luck.

  The Draoicht Spiaire flung Rumour contemptuously to the floor, as if it had drained every ounce of interest from her and every shred of feeling. It was fat and greasy-looking, swollen and grotesque with the new things it had learned about its latest victim. Rumour lay on the floor, her pale gown soaked in blood, but looking so small and frail that Theo knew she was dead; she had been sucked dry of every shred of life she possessed.

  She had been moving slowly, going on tiptoe, thinking that any sudden movement would alert the creature’s attention. She had not quite reached the stair, but she had nearly done so when it turned away from the broken body of Rumour and fixed its wavering eyes on her.

  It lumbered to its feet, and Theo saw with incredulity that it had lost some of its sly, sharp cunning. It was slow and dazed; it floundered, scrabbling at the floor, lurching across the gallery, dragging its bloated body with it, rather as an immensely fat man might move after eating a huge meal. Theo understood at once that the creature had eaten greedily of Rumour’s secrets; it had gobbled them down and it had stored them in its repulsive wormy brains and for the moment it was distended and bloated.

  I can outrun it! thought Theo, gulping in a huge breath and tensing her muscles. Like that it will never catch me! She grasped Rumour’s tapestry box, and for the sliver of an instant, she thought something rippled from the box, and that a pure sliver of light slid from it and lay across the floor, gentle and pale and shimmering with cool beauty. The Draoicht Spiaire made a strange retching sound and hesitated, and in that moment, Theo tumbled down the stair, her heart pounding, her hair flying, beyond worrying about being silent, because she must reach the doors, she must get out into the night.

  Her feet barely seemed to touch the floor, and she half ran, half fell into the great central hall. Just beyond it was the spill of light from the banquet, and she could hear harsh, discordant music and the screeches and the laughter of the Dark Lords. So they are still feasting! thought Theodora. Good!

  There was no time to think of what was behind her; no time to wonder if the evil enchantment would be able to gather its strength to reach her. There was no time to wonder, either, if the doors to the banqueting hall would suddenly be thrown open, and Chaos and his servants would come pouring out.

  But the great central hall was deserted, and Theo stood for a moment to get her breath, trying to decide if it was a trap.

  Chaos would be thinking that the Draoicht Spiaire would have overcome Rumour — and it did! thought Theo, miserably. Would he have ordered it to take them both?

  But Chaos could not know yet that Rumour had got Theo out of the Saraigli.

  Therefore there was no time to lose. She stole silently across the darkened hall, and out through the great doors, and into the perpetual night of the necromancers’ Realm.

  But she had no idea of where she should go.

  And then, without warning, she remembered what Rumour had said about Andrew being in Almhuin, and she remembered as well how Rumour’s eyes had softened in that special remembering way.

  That’s where I’ll go! thought Theo with a rush of relief.

  I’ll go to Andrew.

  I’ll go to Almhuin.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Andrew thought it was remarkable how he had slipped into life inside the Castle, and it was extraordinary how accustomed he had become to the twice-daily journey down to the bricked-up cell.

  He had fashioned the tiny hatch through which he would pass food and water to the Crimson Lady easily enough, setting to work as soon as Rumour had gone, knowing that there would be solace in hard exhausting labour. He had tried to follow her in his mind, sending out prayers and pleas for her safety. She had thought her journey would take two or three days to complete, and in the four days after her departure, he had kept her fixed firmly in his mind and in his prayers. She would smile the slightly mocking smile at the idea of him praying for her, but she would understand.

  He found logs and timber in one of the Castle stables, together with implements for sawing and honing and shaping. He thought these were not part of the Lady’s torture machines, but ordinary, everyday workmen’s tools, probably used for the maintenance of the Castle in the days when Almhuin must have been a huge, bustling community, a small world within itself.

  And now it was empty and desolate, and the only beings who inhabited it were the evil creature who was bricked up in its bowels, and the crippled monk who must perforce limp his maimed way about its echoing halls and cavernous rooms.

  He had made his living place in the stone room where he and Rumour had taken sanctuary, liking the idea of Rumour’s pre
sence which he felt still lingering there; liking the notion of sleeping each night on the pile of rugs and furskins. It would be less lonely to lie with a fire blazing in the small hearth, turning the grey stone walls to copper red, with the faint scent of

  Rumour’s extravagant, sensuous perfumes still clinging to the fur coverings. It drove back the dark desolation, for Almhuin Castle was silent and deserted now; even the villagers had been frightened away by the Fomoire, and they no longer travelled the narrow track with their tilt cart. Andrew knew he would not have been able to cope with the Almhuinians, but in the days following Rumour’s departure, there were times when he stood at the Castle’s great front elevations, framed in the iron-toothed portcullis, and stared down the mountain track to the lights of the strange, mountain community. He could see, quite clearly, the tiny yellow squares of light from Almhuin: the wine shop and the forge and the bakeshop. But he was grateful that the Almhuinians stayed in their homes and that they left him to his own devices in the great deserted Fortress, with only the evil, hungering thing in the dungeons for company.

  She had not tried to escape during those first days, and Andrew had turned his attention to making for himself a small island of comfort in the tainted stronghold. His maimed leg still pained him, but Rumour’s healing spells had caused the jagged wound to close neatly and cleanly, and he thought the pain was not as great as it would have been otherwise. He could cope with the pain.

  He worked hard at becoming more dexterous, and at manipulating the stout ash stick. He would not allow himself to become prey to despair, and he would not allow the pain to quench his faith. In the dark watches of the solitary hours, he sometimes wondered whether this was the punishment for the sweet, sensual hours in Rumour’s arms, and whether this was the yoke of his sin. Brief black anger surged up in him, but with the bitterness came the memory of Brother Stephen’s words: ‘God’s wrath is not in haste to smite, nor does it linger,’ and he remembered, as well, how their Leader had taught, not the harsh vengeance of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but a gentler, more understanding creed of resisting evil.

  Whoever smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also … Resist evil …

  Had he done that when he had preserved the Crimson Lady’s life? He thought: I condemned her to a living death, but I did not force death on her. And I share her sentence with her, and surely there is my true punishment.

  He had no way of telling how long the stark sentence might last but, in the accepting of it, he began to find an unlooked-for calm. Because I am offering my penance for the sin that never once seemed sinful? Because I am working my own retribution? Perhaps.

  And what of the task set by Brother Stephen in that other world and in that other life? I must never lose sight of it, thought Andrew, hobbling about the great, dark Castle. But he knew he had not lost sight of it at all; he knew that when this self-imposed hermitry was over, he would go out into the world again, and he would renew his search for the Black Monk.

  Curiously, he had felt himself to be closer to the Monk in Almhuin Castle than at any other time since setting out on this perilous, unexpected journey. He thought it was surely only because he knew the Monk had been here, that he had served Almhuin’s Crimson Lady, but the feeling persisted, and almost without being aware of it, Andrew began to feel that the Monk was closer at hand than he realised.

  He explored the Castle cautiously but unflinchingly, knowing that he could not rest comfortably until he had looked into every room and every gallery to be certain that nothing walked here, but aware beneath this that he was searching for a trace of the Monk’s habitation.

  But there was nothing. If the Black Monk of Torach had ever walked these halls, he had left behind no imprint. Everywhere Andrew could feel the echoes of lingering agonies, but he pushed them back determinedly. And I will try to bring light and goodness into this dark Fortress, he thought, and then was amused and scornful of so arrogant a thought. Almhuin was soaked in the evil of many centuries and countless generations; how should one man dispel all that!

  The stone room was already a refuge; it had begun to feel familiar each time he entered it, and he was grateful for this small island of comfort in the midst of the immense emptiness.

  He had found the kitchens — huge grim vaults — and the wine-store and the still rooms. A man must eat, no matter how much he intends to fast and pray, and Andrew, peering into deep cupboards and storerooms, found sacks of flour and wheat; crocks of various preserves, jams and fruits all labelled in a thin, clear hand. Almhuin might have been under the sway of an evil and blood-hungry mistress, but at some time — and not so long ago — it had had a provident and careful cellarer.

  Andrew found sides of smoked hams and flitches of bacon, and strings of drying herbs hanging from the blackened rafters of the kitchens. In the beginning, his stomach closed with nausea at the thought of eating the Crimson Lady’s food, but after a time, sanity and common sense prevailed. He thought: those were perfectly ordinary pigs, probably slaughtered in Almhuin to make smoked ham and bacon, that is normal wheat and flour which can be baked into loaves; this is fruit preserve, very similar to the apple and damson preserve we made in the monastery, and in those stone jars is plain honey. The barrels stacked beneath the settle hold nothing other than ordinary soused herrings and mackerel. And a man must eat.

  There were casks of dark, sensuous wine, and of heady, fiery fluid tasting of poppies and cherries. Standing on a cool marble settle were small stoppered flagons of a beverage which Andrew had never before encountered, which tasted of apples and which he found wholly delicious.

  From the stone-flagged kitchens, a tiny flight of steps led up to a small, square garden, and Andrew, manoeuvring with care, but growing nimbler by the day, saw with delight that herbs grew here: lemon thyme and sweet-scented basil and mint and parsley. A small patch of ground had been planted with vegetables: there were recognisable peas and beans, ruffled heads of kale and sturdy cabbages. God’s bounty. He would survive.

  After several failures, he discovered how to fire the massive iron range in the sculleries, using the logs stacked up outside, and felt absurdly pleased when he managed to make a simmering pot of soup out of a knuckle of bacon, with beans and onions and chopped cabbage. He ate it seated in his small room, and felt its normal everyday taste put new heart into him.

  To begin with, the Lady was surly. When Andrew made his conscientious visits to take food and water, she was silent and withdrawn, so that he wondered at first if she had after all died. By standing on a small block of wood, using the ash crutch for support, he managed to peer into the dark oblong of the cell. For a moment he thought she was not there, and he fumbled awkwardly for a light, managing to balance his weight while he held it aloft.

  As the tiny flame leapt upwards in the dry stale air, her face suddenly swam into his vision, impossibly close, no more than eighteen inches from him, so that he knew she must be standing on something just inside the cell, pressing against the newly laid bricks, perhaps hanging on to the shelf of brick made by the hatch. Her face was lit from below by the flame, giving her the look of a fiery devil, and her eyes were huge dark pits of hungry evil, staring at him. There was a dreadful moment when they both stood, their eyes locked; Andrew, appalled, felt a sudden surge of hot strong lust between his thighs. The great black eyes smiled, and one white, crimson-tipped hand came up into the fight, as if the Lady was reaching for him.

  Andrew gasped and fell backwards, missing his balance, crashing to the ground with a sound that was deafening and heart-stopping in the silent dungeons.

  From inside the cell, he heard the deep, throaty chuckle of her laughter, and as he pulled himself upright again, it occurred to him that it had been the satisfied laughter of a creature who has laid a very careful plan, and seen the plan work.

  So she is plotting against me already, and I am alone and defenceless in this evil Fortress.

  *

  Theodora had gone to the jutting, low-roo
fed stable block on the Castle’s western side, which was taking a hugely enormous risk, but which was worth taking, because the journey to Almhuin would be much quicker and much easier if she had a horse to ride.

  It was important to concentrate on being silent and stealthy. If she reached the stables she would begin to feel safer. She would play the portent game, which was not quite a game, but something she had discovered could sometimes harness a helpful power. It was something she had thought up by herself, and she had never told anyone about it, in case of being laughed at, and anyway, it did not work absolutely every time. Theo bit her lip at the memory of Rumour who had said, ‘Sometimes these things work and sometimes they do not.’ She would not think about Rumour yet, because she dared not.

  The idea was to acquire a good omen for whatever you were doing, and you could only acquire an omen by building up portents. The more portents you could build up, the better your chances of a good omen.

  The first portent would be reaching the stone archway that led through to the stables without anyone seeing her. Once she had achieved that, the second could be getting across to the iron gateway that opened on to the stable yard, and the third had better be for the gateway to be unlocked. The fourth could be for the gate not to squeak. After that, she would see what still had to be overcome. Also, she was not very sure of the way to the stables, except that you went through the stone archway. She would be able to think up more portents as she went.

  She tiptoed forward, hardly daring to breathe, and as the shadow of the stone arch fell across her, she drew a breath of relief. She had earned one portent; now she could go on to the second.

  This was actually quite an easy one, nearly a cheat, because it was not very far to walk, and there were deep thick shadows to hide in. But the gate was unlocked and, as it swung silently and easily open, Theo breathed another sigh of relief. Four portents. Nearly halfway to a very good omen indeed.