The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  ‘Much is now clear, yet the more I probe you, one mystery replaces another. The Great Witch would prize your recapture, that much is true. Yet this voice, in the tongue of the ancients, bids me – hah, warns me, more like – to protect you. “This morsel,” it proclaims, “is not for thee!’”

  ‘The voice you hear is my protector, Granny Dew.’

  The wolf snarled, a new rush of slaver oozing through the clenched trap of the great yellow fangs, as if he struggled anew to control his hunger. It seemed to overwhelm him and he roared, with jaws agape, high over Kate’s head. His eyes rolled back to reveal the red-veined whites. His muscles tensed, as if ready to pounce.

  Tears of fright erupted into Kate’s eyes.

  A thunderclap boomed immediately above them, so loud and close it shook the ground beneath Kate’s feet. A voice, like a continuing low echo of that same thunder, pressed against Kate’s eardrums.

  THIS MORSEL IS NOT FOR THEE.

  The wolf’s jaws clamped shut. His eyes, cold and silvery, narrowed to slits, his great head twisting in every direction in search of the origins of the voice.

  ‘I was told to watch out for you, Witch of Morning. The Great Witch anticipated your interference.’

  YOU WERE WELL WARNED.

  ‘Yet still hunger consumes me in this famine landscape.’

  YOU ARE EVER NEEDFUL, FATHER OF HUNGER. THAT IS WHY YOU HUNT ALONE

  With a sudden whine, as if shocked by a spasm of pain, the wolf backed a half pace away from Kate, yet still slavering. ‘Where are you? Why can I not see you, even when you speak like thunder?’

  BE GLAD YOU DO NOT CONFRONT ME. LOOK TO THE MOUNTAIN YONDER. OR TO THE EARTH BENEATH YOUR PAWS.

  The wolf span in a circle, snarling, but finding nothing reared his head to the sky again, his fangs agape, slaver pattering over the ground like heavy drops of rain.

  ‘Who are you to tell me what I can eat? The mountain cannot harm me, nor the earth beneath my paws. Such a feast do I sense before me – rare indeed in these famished times. I see no harm in satisfying my hunger.’

  A second crash of thunder shook the ground beneath Kate’s feet.

  DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW YOU, CARRION-FEEDER, WHO HAS FORGOTTEN HIS OWN NAME?

  The wolf went still, tensed in every sinew. ‘You pretend to know me, you who dare not even show yourself?’

  IT IS, AND EVER WAS, NIGHTSHADE.

  The wolf’s eyes widened and a moan emanated from the slavering jaws. ‘You have knowledge, I grant you. Yet why should I obey you? The Great Witch also harbours knowledge – and her powers grow day by day.’

  I WARN YOU AGAIN, AND THIS WARNING IS FINAL. STAY YOUR HUNGER OR LET IT DEVOUR YOU.

  The wolf tensed again, and his eyes closed on the focus of Kate’s trembling presence. ‘Whatever power you claim, do your worst. Yet will I live and breathe – and my hunger be sated.’

  But even as he leapt at Kate, there was another deafening crack of thunder, and lightning accompanied it, striking the beast in mid-flight and hurling him thirty yards through the air.

  IF HUNGER IS YOUR NEED, FEED ON THIS!

  Kate threw herself back into the hollow, peering over the rim as rivulets of green fire tore at the giant body of the wolf, invading its jaws and running down its throat. The green glow of its fire flickered and crackled inside the lean body, the white fur smoking with the intense heat of his meal of lightning until, abruptly, the light was quenched. The gaunt figure swayed and shuddered.

  WILL YOU DO MY BIDDING NOW – OR WOULD YOU FEED AGAIN?

  ‘No more, ancient mother! I have fed enough for a thousand years.’

  THEN CARRY THIS ORACULUM-BEARER TO SAFETY AS I HAVE BIDDEN.

  ‘It will be done.’

  Even as he spoke a pack of five other wolves had arrived, much smaller, amber-eyed and grey-brown in colour. Snapping and snarling they encircled Kate and the great wolf, as if cutting off any hope of escape. The great wolf howled, causing them to withdraw a pace or two, but the circle was unbroken and their leader howled back, as if calling for support from the hue and cry of the hunt in the near distance. The great wolf dropped his body low, in a crouch. ‘Quickly then, little mouse, climb onto my back. Take a firm grip about my neck. Hold on tight – do not allow yourself to fall.’

  ‘Aaah! Rest … Rest I must …’ The wolf’s voice, even through the oraculum, was a broken wheeze. ‘Climb down, now. You are surely safe for the moment, though it is more than I would predict for me.’

  Kate slid down over his heaving flank, slumping with exhaustion onto a dusty bank by the side of a stream, watching as the sweat-soaked beast, his fur matted and flattened to his hide, slunk down to the water’s edge to lap. She clenched her eyes shut, recalling the huge leap that had carried them clear of the encircling pack, and then the wild, reckless race through the hideous landscape that had outdistanced their pursuers. There had been no opportunity on that nightmare ride to get a single tidbit into her mouth, though now she pressed one between her teeth at once, chewing it while she waited for her heartbeat to climb down out of her throat, then joined the wolf by the stream, kneeling on the pebbly bank and cupping her two hands to bring water up to her own parched lips.

  For several minutes there was silence between them. She saw those grey eyes swivel in her direction from time to time, though the wolf’s head remained bent, his long purple tongue lolling between his fangs.

  When she spoke, it was in a husky whisper. ‘You’re not an ordinary wolf – not like those others.’

  He made no reply, though his body tensed.

  ‘You were consumed by lightning, but still you’re alive.’

  The great head lifted from his chest and swivelled to face her, the icy grey eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion.

  ‘None have I ever permitted to live, not once they knew my name.’

  ‘What’s so special about your name?’

  ‘You heard the ancient one – how cruelly she spoke it.’

  ‘She called you Nightshade?’

  The wolf’s lips retracted, exposing the yellow fangs.

  ‘But why is that so important?’

  Silence froze the very air between them.

  ‘It’s all right. I don’t need to know. But I – I might be able to help you. In return for saving me.’

  ‘Why would you help one who would have eaten you?’

  Kate turned and looked at her reflection in the stream, a broken image, but clear enough for her to see the inverted triangle in her brow – a triangle of green, flecked with moving arabesques of gold, that was now throbbing with every pulse. She stared at her reflection a little longer, blinking rapidly. ‘During the journey – when your mind was preoccupied with fleeing – I sensed a need deeper than your belly.’

  ‘Anger, perhaps …’

  ‘I’m only discovering what this – this oraculum – means.’ She reached up and touched the crystal again, wincing at the sensitivity that penetrated deep within, deeper even than the bone of her brow. ‘I have a lot to learn.’

  ‘Why explain yourself to me?’

  ‘Maybe because I pity you.’

  He snarled, averting his head.

  ‘Perhaps the other hunger, the anger, is so deep within you, the bitterness so terrible, that you can’t recall how it got there in the first place?’

  The wolf lunged away from her, putting a good thirty or forty feet between them. She thought he might sprint away, abandon her altogether, so deep was his resentment. But then he turned and looked at her again. ‘And you – what is your purpose? What makes you so important you have such a protector?’

  ‘I am told that my power is that of new birth – of healing.’

  He paused, as if to consider her words. ‘But what does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Are there limits to this power?’

  Kate shook her head, acknowledging her own confusion and ignorance.

  ‘You are a mystery. Yet I cannot deny that the Great W
itch appears to fear you – she fears this power you possess.’

  ‘When I look at you, when I really look – through the crystal – I see a second being inside you.’

  ‘You even talk in riddles.’

  ‘Maybe I do. But I recall Siam, the chief of the Olhyiu, who helped me and my friends escape from the ice-bound lake. He appeared to be a man but he could change into a bear, as if the bear were somehow deep inside him. It was my friend Alan who saw that in Siam. Maybe I’m seeing something like that in you? Maybe you’re a wolf who has the spirit of a man inside you.’

  The grey eyes of the wolf stared at her and a shiver ran through the gaunt frame.

  ‘What is it – what’s the matter?’

  ‘I felt you probe me. I sensed your power.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. It frightens me.’

  Kate looked down at her dress of spidersweb. Where it had been torn by thorns and rock in her attempts to flee, it had repaired itself. The pockets were intact, and within them she found the second purse of grass. She peered into it, at the mixture of seeds it contained. What was she supposed to do with it? What did Granny Dew expect of her?

  A pocket of life – the beginnings of things.

  With a bewildered shake of her head she pressed her hand into the purse and filled her fist with the seeds. Opening it out in front of her face, she closed her eyes and searched in her mind for the eye of the oraculum. Then, with her eyes still closed, she blew on the seeds, scattering them about her with no more than her breath. She kept her eyes closed for a minute or two, staring into the void of darkness until she was alerted by the howling of the wolf.

  When she opened her eyes again the desolate landscape around her was shooting up grass, bushes, flowers. The wolf was dashing through it, hopping into the air and pouncing, shrieking, in what sounded almost like human cries of glee.

  ‘How very strange you are!’ he growled.

  She stared at a small bird being swallowed whole between his snapping jaws. Perhaps there had been eggs among the seeds? She felt more bewildered than ever.

  Suddenly Kate sensed enormous red eyes swivelling towards her. Into her mind came dreadful sensations, visions. She became aware of a titanic figure with a great horned head as it probed the world about it, as if searching for her. She felt sick with panic.

  The testing of her power had been prideful, a mistake. Granny Dew had warned her not to do so. She was still too close to the Tower of Bones. ‘Nightshade – if that’s your true name – we’re in great danger. We can’t stay here a moment longer. We have to get away, right now!’

  The wolf, his hunger at least partially sated, reared before her. ‘What is it, little mouse? What do you sense?’

  ‘She’s found me.’

  ‘Who has found you?’

  ‘The Witch.’

  ‘But you are free of her. You have escaped the Tower.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Look around you.’

  The wolf stared around himself to see, even in the recovered landscape, how vapours were rising and creeping in around the clefts and hollows. A hole yawned in the earth twenty feet away and purple-grey tentacles emerged to probe and destroy the tiny shoots of life.

  The wolf sprang to Kate’s feet and lowered his body so she could climb onto his back again. She struggled to do so through her exhaustion.

  ‘Quickly now. And I will return a secret.’

  Kate blinked, trying to find the words of a reply, but her strength was gone. The great jaws of the wolf grasped her and tossed her, with a bone-jarring thump, onto his scrawny back.

  ‘Hold on!’

  Kate tried to force what strength she still had into the oraculum on her brow. Clutching at the wolf’s straggly mane she held on grimly while in her inner vision she saw that sickly red glow invade the landscape and devour the life she had just sown. The Witch’s tentacles slithered and crept over everything as if sucking the spirit of memory from every stone and crevice.

  ‘Help me, Nightshade!’

  The long haunches sprang into flight with a speed that made a blur of the landscape. Kate’s heart took strength from his strength.

  ‘Tell me, Nightshade … tell me your story.’

  ‘You have already seen into my heart. You know that I am no ordinary wolf. I was born to rule them, but my birthright was stolen from me long ago. Yet already you have shown me your purpose. You are the healer this voice in my head proclaims you to be. One day, if you but live, you might restore the Wildwoods.’

  It took all of her strength to stay awake just to listen to his words, his thoughts, and take comfort from them.

  On and on they wove, faster than a racehorse, into the darkening night. Kate’s senses had blurred to an exhausted stupor long before they came to a great river that ran deep and wide through a barren landscape. At the shore the wolf slipped and slid over slimy rocks, before hesitating at the water’s edge. Then, abruptly, he waded out into the water.

  As if in a dream Kate saw an island a hundred yards away, opalescent with moonlight. She was weary beyond exhaustion. Twilight enfolded her mind, like a cloak.

  ‘No,’ she murmured, ‘I mustn’t fall asleep!’

  Yeeesss, sleep now!

  They had arrived at the island. She was sliding off the wolf’s back, coming to rest with her exhausted head against a curl of knobbly black rock that looked like a fossilised log of driftwood. She lacked the energy to find a softer pillow.

  ‘I can’t sleep. I don’t dare. I might never wake up.’

  Yet still she heard that comforting voice inside her mind.

  Sleep!

  As she struggled to keep open her eyes she saw the great wolf metamorphose into the figure of a man, a tall, ancient-looking figure, lean and bent, with sad grey eyes, but steely too, eyes that spoke of endurance and courage.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mouthed, although she had no idea why he would wish to thank her.

  Her eyes drifted closed – and refused to open again.

  Sleep, now! Find comfort in dreams!

  Ghost Talk

  Alan stood alone at the apex of the foredeck of the Ship, gazing out onto a vast panorama of rolling seas and evening sky. The quiet did it – the lack of any intrusive mechanical noise. It soothed your mind, expanded your horizons both physical and mental until you could lose yourself in it. It made you deeply aware of the medley of more subtle sounds that revealed the inner workings of the Ship. He listened now to the creaking and groaning of the timbers that followed each new wave that struck the prow, the moans and shrieks of the wind in the miles of rigging. Qwenqwo’s voice, when it interrupted his musing, caused him to blink with surprise.

  ‘Do you know that my father, Urox Zel, saw the oceans as a great serpent, with the swells its coils ever-writhing.’

  Alan considered the extraordinary idea. ‘I think, Qwenqwo, that the journey is proving even more trying for you than it is for me.’

  Things were moving too slowly for his passionate friend. The seagoing journey of the expeditionary force, a week out of port, was making excellent, if measured, progress. Siam estimated a little under three days at most to landfall. Qwenqwo, out of boredom with the shipboard routines, had taken to spinning an inexhaustible repertoire of exceedingly bawdy tales for the off-duty sailors, who were delighted to stoke his storytelling with an equally inexhaustible supply of grog and tobacco.

  ‘The coils of a serpent?’

  ‘Aye!’ Qwenqwo knocked the bowl of his pipe against the rail, scattering ash and sparks. ‘We Fir Bolg have a name for the serpent – Tunntrokka. Here, in this damnable journey, I hear it snorting, night and day.’

  Alan couldn’t help but smile. A mist of spray washed their faces as they leaned their elbows on the rail. But Qwenqwo wasn’t to be deflected from his grumbling. ‘We’ve had the good fortune of easy progress. It’s tempting to underestimate Tunntrokka while she slumbers. But look yonder – beware that gentle roll of wave and current! Tunntrokka is at her most decept
ive when she affects to please.’

  She?

  Alan, still half-smiling, gazed out onto the passing ocean. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  The dwarf mage’s face lit up. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘It’s about Mark.’

  Qwenqwo glanced Alan’s way, his expression wary. ‘You have spoken to Mo about what happened on board the Ship?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The dwarf mage sucked on an empty bowl. ‘And there’s more you would ask of me?’

  ‘Are you aware that Mark is here?’

  ‘Your friend is here, aboard the Ship?’

  ‘Yes – but not in the normal sense.’

  The Ship rolled, a slow rise and fall, as it rode a wave. Qwenqwo frowned, looking out into the ocean. ‘In what sense?’

  ‘I don’t know – maybe his ghost.’

  Qwenqwo packed away the empty pipe, sliding it into a pocket of his greatcoat, his eyes still on the sea. ‘You add to my confusion.’

  ‘I’m pretty confused myself. But I’m talking to him.’

  ‘You’re talking to a ghost?’

  ‘It’s kind of hard to explain!’

  Alan shook his head in frustration. How normal things seemed, on the surface. The Temple Ship was one with sea and elements, with the winds full in the sails and the prow cleaving through the waves. It had been restored to its present form as a great ocean-going galleon immediately after the conclusion of the war council on the beach at Carfon. Alan knew that Mark had arranged this, just as he had played a key role in the raptor transformation that had saved him from the Tyrant’s robot. Right now, Alan couldn’t even pretend to understand the relationship between Mark and the Ship. Other than he knew it was close – maybe very close indeed.