‘Am I not a responsible man? Am I not doing my very best, going about my duties to my fellow sailors aboard this Ship?’
‘Yes – of course you are.’
‘Did I not save the girl, your friend?’
‘You most certainly did, Mr Larrh!’
Turkeya was more than a little frightened by the look in Larrh’s eyes. The increasing pressure of the cook’s heavy hands on his shoulders, which appeared entirely involuntary, was causing the young shaman’s knees to buckle. Turkeya recalled the order of the Kyra that he should look for strangeness, in situations and in persons. The cook, Larrh, was behaving very strangely indeed. The young shaman tried to step back a pace of two but he could not.
‘What troubles you – in the name of the Powers?’
Larrh’s hands released Turkeya to move to his brow, where they clasped the tangle of his sodden hair and yanked at it. ‘In the name of the Powers, you say?’ He rubbed at his brow, as if trying to catch hold of his thoughts. ‘Hasn’t old Larrh been the epitome of all that is reasonable … all that is reputable and respectable … always?’
Turkeya had taken advantage of his release to withdraw closer to the galley door. Yet still, despite his fear, he felt a healer’s sympathy with the cook’s distress. ‘For pity’s sake, let me help you!’
‘Such things … such sounds in my head. Such visions! Tssssttttzzzz!’
Turkeya thought he could smell something burning, like flesh scorched in a flame. ‘You are troubled by dreams?’
‘Troubled? Troubled, you ask? Haunted more like.’ He groaned aloud, smashing his head against the timbers to the side of the porthole, hard enough to rupture an eyebrow. Blood ran in a thick stream over his eyelid and down his cheek without appearing to trouble him. ‘How can a man – a decent and respectable man – be so ravaged? I demand of you – shaman? Nightmares that come when asleep – that I might understand. But nightmares even more terrible when I am awake …’
Turkeya’s right hand groped in his pocket for the whistle. If he could only blow on it, it would emit a high-pitched tone, soundless to human ears. The Kyra would hear it, even through the roar of the wind and waves. He had managed to get a hold of it. His fingers curled around its angular shape, carved out of some fine-grained horn.
‘Nightmares, you say?’
‘The cook’s eyes turned up in his head as if they were looking through deck and storm in the direction of the red star. ‘Haunted by such terrible dreams.’ His eyes fell and he looked at the young shaman with a desperate pleading. ‘Such monsters …’
Turkeya had the whistle out. He was in the act of taking it to his lips. ‘Then let me summon help!’
‘None can help me.’ Larrh shook his head. ‘I’m filled with such … such omens! Such evil presentiments …’
A great swell struck and the decks swung tumultuously to port. So overwhelming was the shock, it felt as if the entire Ship had turned onto its side. It was followed by an explosive boom and then a thunderous crash, as if the Ship had fallen through thin air to land on solid rock, causing them both to topple against the board where the cook worked and slept. There was a splintering of planks, a rupturing of the beams that supported the deck below them, a tearing and ripping, as of timbers being twisted beyond their endurance, then the screams of sailors. The after-effects reverberated in Turkeya’s ears, even as everything about him was cast into a yawning tilt. He struck his head against the thick planks, and blood welled into his left eye. But still the young shaman managed to drag himself back onto his uncertain feet.
Larrh, with his face also bloodied, managed to find a sitting position on the puddled floor with his elbows on the table surface and his head between his hands. There was an intense impression of spinning, as if the entire Ship was rudderless. The whistle had been torn from Turkeya’s grasp and he could only scramble over the sloping floor, feeling with his fingers through the brine and debris, in an effort at retrieving it.
What, he wondered, would cause the cook to be so tormented that he was losing his senses?
He saw Larrh’s eyes open on him with a look of suspicion. He had to keep him distracted while his fingers yet hunted. With his left hand scrabbling out of sight, Turkeya stretched his right arm across the table to place his hand on the man’s heavy shoulder, discovering tensed flesh that felt like rock. ‘Has something happened to you, Mr Larrh? Have you noticed something awry? Remember that I am the shaman – as well as your friend.’
A look of alarm spread over the cook’s face. With one arm hooked over a beam, he was struggling back onto his feet, his head and shoulders rising across the great slab of board, his eyes protruding, as if the mind behind them was swelling with horror. ‘My head,’ he gasped. ‘Such agony!’
At last Turkeya’s fingers closed around the familiar angular shape of the whistle, and as Larrh’s huge hands reached out to grab hold of his throat the young shaman brought it to his lips and blew on it, a single blast.
‘Larrh yanked the whistle out of Turkeya’s mouth and brought it before his bulging eyes. His other hand retained a firm hold of Turkeya’s throat. His brow frowned into a wrinkled landscape of perplexity.
Turkeya tried to loosen the choking hand. He croaked, his voice a wheezy whisper. ‘The whistle calls the Aides. A … a potion for you. Something to help you sleep without nightmares.’
The throttling grip eased slightly. ‘Sleep? You can help me sleep?’ A look on the fellow’s face as if begging him to help him, but then his face became a snarl. ‘You lie! Liar! You’re another liar – another just pretending to be my friend!’
Turkeya felt the throttling hand tighten again. He could no longer speak.
‘You’re a pack of liars! All! You’re clever with words. You torment and torment! Porky Lard, you call me!’
Turkeya was rapidly losing his senses, drifting into unconsciousness, but still he attempted to break the stranglehold.
The cook’s other hand closed on the whistle, crumpling it to splinters.
‘You have no intention of helping me.’ Larrh pushed the semi-conscious Turkeya roughly away from him, so he stumbled back and sprawled into the space between the board and the wall. Then, as if the act of doing so heightened his agony, the cook moaned and pressed his head down onto his knees with his two hands. ‘None can help me. Not you. And no more those abominations in female shape that creep about, always in the shadow of the witches!’ The cook grabbed a cleaver. He climbed to his feet, then began to slink around the long bulk of the board, one hand clenched tight around the cleaver while the other still clutched at his head.
‘Did I hear you aright – did you not offer to share the torment with me?’
The cook reached down and lifted the shaman to his feet by the hair. Turkeya was dragged out of the galley, and then further to the staircase, which appeared to be distorted and twisted, with its risers pitched at that same mad angle to port as the rest of the Ship. The shambling giant hauled him up onto the storm-lashed deck. ‘Well now, shaman – who would be my friend! Would you care to accompany old Porky Lard on his journey into hell?’
On what remained of the aft deck, Alan’s numbed arms still tethered him to the frozen wheel. His saw how the Ship whirled about its axis. His ears were filled with the screams of others aboard. Peering out of his ice-stiffened eyelids, he tried to make out what was happening. Only then did he catch his first glimpse of the true nature of the threat – and his heart quailed. A second slow-motion blink and he saw it clearly off the port side. He was staring down into an enormous whirlpool – a gyre – that was the malignant eye of the tempest. Within its roiling circumference was a maw so gargantuan it must descend to the very floor of the ocean. The Temple Ship was no more than a speck of flotsam caught up in its rage.
A Vision of Apocalypse
Alan stared down into the widening gyre. He could feel its irresistible draw on the ocean around the Ship. Taking a gulp of icy breath into his lungs he exhaled between his chattering teeth, watching
the steam of his breath being sucked away, swallowed down into the pit. He recalled a memory of when he was no more than eight or nine years old and the elderly Mother Superior at his primary school had taken a group of children into the small chapel with a stained-glass window. She had explained how, through the blood-red central pane, they could see the world as it would appear on the Day of Judgement. ‘The Second Coming,’ she said, quoting Yeats’ poem, ‘when the Antichrist would come into the world.’ That terrifying prospect had been so etched into his memory that he had never forgotten it, a vision of a monstrous and rapidly widening gyre that caused the entire world to fall apart.
Alan saw that apocalypse now just as the elderly sister had predicted it.
He felt the oraculum flaring manically in his brow. There was nothing more that he could do. Only now, lifting his head from his chest, did he notice the disturbance on what was left of the central deck. Three figures were locked in some kind of a struggle. Some kind of madness! He recognised the tall figure of Ainé, who was attempting to free Turkeya from the grip of an enormous man. Alan recognised the white-haired cook, Larrh. He was dragging the young shaman by his hair across the icy deck, ignoring the fact that all that kept him upright was the centrifugal force of the gigantic whirlpool. All three figures were sliding toward the splintered gunwale. Suddenly the Kyra’s sword flashed, severing the forearm that held Turkeya. With a sweep of her arm, the Kyra sent the young shaman sliding back up the slope of deck, to where he crashed into the stump of the great mast and held on for life.
What the heck …
The Kyra had taken hold of the cook’s greatcoat just below his throat. She had buried her sword in the deck, like a pinion, and, with her claws extended out of her feet and into the icy deck she was attempting to save the life of the cook, who, despite the loss of his forearm, continued to struggle. All of a sudden the greatcoat tore apart over the cook’s chest and Ainé reared backwards. Alan felt the unexpected force of her shock, mind-to-mind. He recoiled, as she did, seeing what was burning deep in the man’s breast, so buried in the scorched flesh and bone it was almost out of sight. It was some kind of glowing pendant, with the Tyrant’s symbol ablaze within it.
As if in slow motion, Alan’s mouth opened to shout a warning. Even as he reacted Ainé released the cook from her clawed hand. He saw the man’s body sucked overboard, drawn into the vortex of the whirlpool, turning over and over, his scream lost in the maelstrom.
Immediately Alan’s senses cleared. But the gyre was still there. Exhausted beyond endurance he still opposed it, his heartbeat thready, his life force strained to breaking point. He renewed his struggle to resist the storm that surrounded him, but the gyre continued to grow.
What more can I do? I’m done – finished!
Think – you idiot!
Mark’s voice – Mark was back, inside his head. And his words had cleared. Alan thought: The Tyrant’s amulet around the cook’s neck – it must somehow have been responsible for the confusion in all of our minds.
Think what? he called to Mark.
The Ship was being drawn into the gyre with increasing velocity. They were already over the lip. He was gazing at a whirlpool with walls like encircling mountains and the Ship was listing perilously. A few degrees more and it would turn right over and pitch them into the abyss. Alan’s face was stretched, his lips torn back from gritted teeth, his eyes staring, full and round out of retracted lids.
The Earth Power – it’s feeding off you.
Mark’s words were insane.
It’s feeding off your power … your oraculum.
Gritting his teeth still harder, his limbs feeling torn apart, he tried to make himself think it through. Could Mark be right? Could it be true? Was the gyre really driven by the First Power?
Stop feeding it! Close it down!
I hear you. But what if you’re wrong?
Could he take the chance? What if he stopped resisting the gyre? If Mark was wrong they would be destroyed, ripped asunder in just a few moments.
I’m speaking for the Temple Ship!
Could the Earth Power have created the enormous force of the gyre? In probing it, he could feel it now, he could hear its deafening roar in his ears, he could see, through the eye of the oraculum, the myriad tiny lines of force, blue as cobalt, pure and precise and deadly, spiralling down at colossal speed, dragging wind and ocean with them, creating storm and vortex. But where were they originating? With a renewed effort, he followed the lines of force to their source, and with a shock, he discovered that it was him – he himself, his oraculum.
You’re right – I can’t believe it.
It had been so instinctive in him to fight back through the oraculum that it had never occurred to him he might be feeding the gyre. But now, seeing those lines all come back to a single source in his brow, it became obvious. The glowing pendant must have been some kind of malengin, smuggled on board the Ship. It had enabled the Tyrant to subvert Alan’s own power. His oraculum hadn’t been under his control. All the time it had been flaring madly it had been under the control of the Tyrant.
I have to turn it off immediately.
To do so he had to overcome his deepest instincts. He had to empty his mind completely, to ignore the fear and desperation in the hearts and minds of everybody around him, the sense of caring for his friends. He had to close himself down, emotionally and spiritually.
There was no time left to worry about being wrong. He closed himself down. He let go of the Ship. Mentally he withdrew his resistance, ignoring the overwhelming instinct that the gyre would be free to do its worst.
He closed his eyes with dread.
He felt the change. His ears rang like whistles as the thundering stopped. He saw through the abating blizzard the transformation of the Kyra to snow tigress, right there on the slanting main deck. He saw how she used her claws for purchase as she scrabbled and tore her way to mount the steps onto the aft deck, where those same claws made short work of the thongs that tethered him to the wheel.
Alan fell to his knees, his body stiff with exhaustion. He was unable to lift his head to face her.
Ainé growled: ‘The splinter of malice – it was the cook? The amulet about his throat with the sigil?’
‘Yeah – the Tyrant was behind it.’
‘The Tyrant – not the Witch?’
He tried to shake his head, but it still refused to move on his neck.
‘The red eye was just a diversion.’ He coughed, struggling to get his still-frozen mouth to work. ‘You were right – my enemies knew my weakness. They used my concern for Kate. They were working together.’
He couldn’t believe that he had been outsmarted again. He had been tricked into allowing his power, the Power of the Earth, to be subverted. The thought shocked him to the core; it unnerved him.
‘But the danger still threatens. You must recover yourself – use your power to save the Temple Ship.’
‘No!’ His whole body was trembling with exhaustion. ‘I can’t use the First Power to save her – it would be too dangerous!’
‘But the Ship is wrecked. The masts are destroyed and the decks are rubble. There is neither sail nor rudder.’
‘The gyre was powered by my oraculum.’
‘What foolishness is this?’
‘Ainé – you’ll have to trust me!’ It was an effort even to breathe. His chest wall felt solid, as if the ice had frozen right through. ‘Be my eyes. Look about you. Tell me what you see.’
He was aware of her brooding presence close by him. He shut off all other awareness and senses, since the danger of subversion was still there. ‘Look about you,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me what you see of the gyre!’
The Kyra hesitated, her head swivelling on the muscular neck, those blue eyes studying the vortex for several seconds. Then she exhaled through her nostrils, causing the dying spindrift of snow to eddy about her face. ‘The storm abates. The gyre closes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘E
lements and ocean – they heal.’
‘And the red star?’
‘Gone!’
‘Thank heaven.’
‘This is no time for thanksgiving. The Ship is lost.’
Alan’s body was slowly thawing, just sufficient for him to lay his exhausted head against the wheel. ‘The Ship will heal itself.’
She studied him with that glacial stare, her eyelids still encrusted with snow and ice. ‘You know this?’
‘I think so.’
The Kyra was already directing the Aides to assist the injured aboard. One of the Aides brought healwell to Alan’s lips.
Ainé watched him take a sip, and then another, deeper drink. She waited a minute or two for it to have some reviving effect.
‘Help me to my feet.’
Between them – awkwardly because the Aides was so small on one side while the Kyra was so enormous – they hoisted him to his feet, allowing time for his numbed legs to recover enough just to keep him standing. Around them the snow and ice were thawing. It was happening so quickly he could see the edges melting and shrinking. They helped him to step away from the wheel. Alan stretched his back, groaning aloud at the return of circulation to his limbs.
‘Okay – stop!’
‘What is it?’
‘I sense the return of my friend. Mark is back at the wheel.’
He felt a stiffening in the arm of the Kyra as she turned with some care – the melting ice was still treacherous underfoot – to witness the great wheel begin to take control over the rudder once more. Alan looked up, feeling the patter of meltwater on his head and face, dripping from the tattered remains of the superstructure. All three of them rocked backwards with the sudden rush of force that expanded outwards from the wheel, observing how the Ship immediately began to alter form, the glow of rebirth limning its broken decks and masts, one in spirit with the presence embracing the wheel.
The Tower of Bones Page 21
