The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  The Kyra spoke: ‘What do you perceive of the land ahead?’

  Through the oraculum Alan could penetrate the mists and see that they had reached the edge of a great plateau, a blighted landscape certainly, but underneath the desolate surface were shapes and ruins. ‘Looks like some kind of a graveyard – from the size of the bones, I guess a graveyard of giants.’

  The Kyra exhaled. ‘Were there no mist, we should see the Tower itself.’

  Alan stared ahead, forcing his concentration to increase, sensing the Tower’s looming presence, the horror of it so very close.

  The Kyra interrupted his thoughts, springing to alertness and roaring out a warning: ‘Shee beware! Something comes!’

  The Shee formed a barrier between their charges and the direction from which the red-pulsating menace coloured the sky.

  With a limping gait, a gigantic wolf appeared out of the mists, white hair soaked with sweat and clotted with the blood of many wounds. Its jaws were parted on enormous fangs. Its grey eyes, bloodshot yet defiant, stared at the company, nostrils snuffling in their direction. With a growl that caused every hackle to rise, it moved with limping strides in their direction until it stood before them, its muzzle slavering blood. Its emaciated chest was spasming in great wincing draughts, as if it were panting its last breaths.

  Several among the Shee lofted javelins, but Kate pushed through the defensive line to throw her arms about the creature’s neck.

  ‘No! Please don’t harm him.’ She almost blurted out his secret name, but held her tongue. ‘This is my friend. He ignored his own hunger and saved my life when I was running from the Tower. He risked his life to protect me from the other wolves.’

  Kate’s oraculum burst into flame, covering the trembling figure in its soft green light. Before their astonished gazes the wolf changed into a tall, emaciated man, a very old man, also terribly wounded.

  ‘Let us help you.’

  ‘This is no time to concern yourself about me. I have come to warn you, little healer. You should immediately turn about – and run!’

  ‘We can’t do that.’ Alan joined Kate in standing before the wolf-man, who had fallen onto his knees, struggling for breath.

  ‘The entire pack, the Witch’s teeth, they come in their hundreds. They outnumber you by more than ten to one. You must flee – or die.’

  Fangorath

  Kate’s lips were compressed with worry as she knelt by the injured Nightshade, whose pain was being treated with healwell while his wounds were being dressed by several Aides. There was no guarantee he would survive – and even if he did he would face the very attack he had risked his life to warn them about. Kate closed her eyes and directed whatever healing powers her oraculum possessed onto his ravaged body.

  She felt Alan put his arm around her shoulders. He spoke softly: ‘Maybe I’d better go ahead on my own!’

  ‘No!’ Kate climbed back onto her feet and hugged him tight. She couldn’t stop herself trembling, even though she knew he could feel it.

  He kissed her brow. ‘You heard what the wolf-man said. Maybe you should all retreat – find a safer place. Leave me to go on alone?’

  ‘Not without me!’

  He insisted gently. ‘We both know that Ainé thinks it’s suicidal.’

  ‘I don’t care. I keep thinking – Granny Dew – when she gave me this power, she told me something. She told me to trust my heart alone.’

  They could hear the howling of the wolves, rapidly closing. Looking up into Alan’s face, Kate saw the same stubborn look she recalled from the day she had first met him on the bank of the River Suir, when the swans were beating though the air, heading straight at him, and he refused to duck down.

  ‘I’m not waiting for them to attack. I’m going to take the fight to them.’

  With the small gathering of surviving Shee singing their battle hymn around them Alan pressed forward, Kate next to him, leading the company into a mist so dense it could have been a cloud.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked him. ‘You’re scowling.’

  ‘The Witch – I sense her watching us.’

  Feeling Kate’s grip tightening about his arm, Alan recalled what Sister Hocht in her dying moments had told him about this place in answer to his question: ‘What is it about the Tower of Bones?’

  Her words had been slurred. But he had read her meaning on her destroyed lips …

  The Third Portal!

  ‘Oh, man!’

  ‘What is it?’

  Should he add to her terror by explaining what he knew?

  There was no longer time for him to think about it. They had broken through the bank of mists to be confronted by an extraordinary sight. Up ahead, so monstrous it made them hesitate, the Tower had been subsumed in a furnace of baleful red, erupting over the landscape and into the sky in pulsating waves. It was as if the magma at the core of the world had burst through the surface and was clawing at the sky. Dark shapes flickered within it, like two beings of enormous power at war with one another.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Alan’s voice was husky with disbelief.

  ‘The Witch’s song – Olc exultant!’

  ‘Hey, don’t allow her to frighten you, Kate’

  ‘I can’t help it. She terrifies me.’

  A cloud of dust was approaching. It came from the pounding feet of wolves, a multitude of them, with fangs agape and tongues slavering. The small defensive wall of Shee tensed, javelins raised.

  The oraculum in Alan’s brow burst into flame, directed at the ground immediately in front of the wolves. Lightning struck in a series of incandescent arcs, descending out of the darkening sky and ripping at the land. A gigantic rent appeared directly across the path of the wolves. They continued their charge, despite many of them plummeting into the chasm. But most of them made it, sweeping around the edges of the chasm, some leaping across seemingly impossible distances as if their frenzy had given them wings. Hundreds survived and continued their attack. By now these were close enough for the Shee javelins to take out their leaders. But it made little difference.

  The approaching wolves were close enough now for Alan and Kate to smell them, the rabid breath mixed with the sweat-soaked pelts. They could see the bloodlust that burned in their eyes. At a signal from the Kyra the Shee metamorphosed into great cats, and they closed, in a snarling arc, in front of the company. Alan caught sight of Qwenqwo Cuatzel, his lips moving in a chant of prayer, the runes over the edges of his battleaxe glowing in his upraised arm. But the odds were still hopeless.

  Then Alan heard Iyezzz’s screech – and he followed the direction of the pointed wing-claw, to where a dark cloud was blotting out the daylight. Gargs! A vast horde of them. He could even make out the extended claws that glittered over the extended feet. Where was he to turn the power of his oraculum, to the wall of slavering fangs on the ground or against the Gargs falling out of the sky?

  Kate was tugging at his arm, her trembling hand gesticulating …

  Alan shook his head, assuming that she was trying to tell him what he already knew. But she yanked at him still harder, pointing to where the Gargs were descending, claws extended, fangs bared.

  He heard Iyezzz’s roar. ‘The King – my father – has kept his word.’

  The Gargs weren’t attacking them. They were swooping on the wolves, the animals massing about the protective wall of Shee. Confused by the attack falling on them from out of the sky, many of the wolves were turning their rage on one another. He felt Kate’s arm hug his own, both watching in amazement as the Eyrie Gargs snatched wolves bodily off the ground and, ignoring their howling and snapping, bore them high into the air – only to hurl them to their deaths on the rocky ground.

  Thank you, Momu!

  Even as he sensed Kate’s words of gratitude, he felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned round to gaze into the eyes of Nightshade. The wolf-man was less stooped, his wounds healing. But still it was his species who were being destroyed.

  ‘I’m sorry!�
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  ‘A thousand generations were lost to the Witch’s purpose. But there will be a new generation – if you can but defeat her this day.’

  Acrid smoke poured into the sky from the furnace of the Tower, consuming the daylight so it appeared like dusk in the early afternoon. Fierce gusts of wind erupted outwards in waves, tearing at their faces so they were forced to squint, and ripping at their hair. Kate’s dress was flattened against her body. Oh, lord! Now she had arrived at the moment of confrontation, her courage was failing her.

  ‘You don’t know her,’ she pleaded with Alan. ‘I don’t know if I dare to take another step out there. Look at it!’

  ‘I have to go now, Kate. While the Witch is preoccupied with getting close and comfortable with the titan.’

  ‘Not without me!’

  ‘Qwenqwo! Please tell her?’

  ‘The Mage Lord is right. Now is the time for him to face the Witch. He must destroy her or be destroyed.’

  The ground quaked beneath them as another thunderous detonation emanated from the furnace.

  Kate whispered: ‘I’m frightened for him, Qwenqwo.’

  ‘Only a fool would not be frightened. Yet if the Witch achieves full consummation with the titan the emerging being will be powerful beyond belief. Its malice will be far more dangerous than the sum of each individually.’

  Alan nodded to Qwenqwo. ‘Please make it clear to Kate what will happen if we fail – the Cill, the Gargs?’

  ‘They will perish.’

  ‘And us – Kate and me?’

  ‘You will be seen as rivals in power. Whatever emerges from that consummation will destroy you both.’

  Alan gently prised himself free of Kate. Gazing into his eyes she was looking at the reflection of the horrible pulsating furnace that was the Tower. ‘You know in your heart that there’s no time left. If the Witch wins, everything I came here to do will be over. It was always going to be her or me.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Another thunderous detonation pitched even the Shee off-balance. Within seconds a storm of grey ash descended over the company, whirling among them like snow caught up in a gale.

  ‘No, Kate!’

  ‘I’ll get over my terror.’

  ‘She knows you. She knows your weaknesses. If you’re there with me, I’ll be worrying all the time about protecting you instead of killing her.’ He kissed her softly, then held her at arms’ length.

  Qwenqwo, one burly arm around Mo, reached out his other arm and embraced the trembling Kate. ‘The Mage Lord is right. You will not help him by accompanying him out there. But there is a way in which you might truly help him undermine the Witch. It is through your gift, Kate. If you can counter the evil of her purpose here, it will injure her at the fulcrum of her malice.’

  In Qwenqwo’s embrace, Kate wept, through closed eyelids.

  Another way …

  Kate nodded, understanding now, and she opened her tear-filled eyes and took a reluctant step away from Alan. Placing the seed pouch in the bowl of her hands, with lips and mind as one, she blew life out into the valley of the Tower of Bones.

  Qwenqwo released Kate and Mo to take a fierce grip of Alan’s shoulders. ‘Before you face such a foe, a word of advice. Back there, on the lip of the maelstrom, the Tyrant used your power against you.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve thought about that.’ Alan wiped the coating of ash from his lips, which was making it difficult even to speak. ‘I won’t fall for it a second time.’

  The dwarf mage, his red hair and beard, even his very eyebrows, turned grey with the same ash, looked him fiercely in the eyes. ‘You cannot go there alone. I will accompany you – aye, and the Kyra also!’

  ‘No, Qwenqwo. There’s nothing your battleaxe, or the Kyra’s sword or javelin, can do there.’

  ‘Even so, we can stand shoulder to shoulder with you. We can give you the comfort of our presence.’

  ‘If I fail, you’ll have to try to save Kate and Mo.’ Alan hugged the burly Fir Bolg warrior. But then, as he turned to leave them, the Kyra strode forward, and to his surprise she offered the twining of arms that was the Shee mark of respect in battle. Their eyes met for a moment before he broke the contact, turning to Iyezzz. ‘I need to get over the chasm I created with the First Power. I don’t have time to go around it. Can your people help me to get as close as possible to the Witch without being blown apart?’

  Kate stared, her exhausted arms fallen to her sides, as two of the biggest Gargs took an arm each, their wings beating slowly and powerfully, lofting Alan in seconds and then sweeping out in the direction of the Tower. She felt Mo’s embrace close around her as they watched him become diminished with distance until he appeared vulnerably tiny, dwarfed by the spuming monstrosity.

  ‘I can’t believe I let him go. Mo – if he dies, I will too!’

  ‘If he dies, we’ll all die with him.’

  Alan’s attack was immediate. Lightning erupted from the tiny figure and struck the Tower, causing an ear-crackling thunder, and in its wake an earthquake shook the ground under their feet.

  Kate struggled against her fears to try to remember more of what the Momu had taught her. Olc … dependent for her sustenance on cruelty, exulting in the agony suffered by the Momu as city after city was hunted down and discovered, then annihilated, spiritually sucked dry. She poured out her own attack upon the Witch, delivering a great wave of healing, of rebirth, feeling it deluge from the oraculum in her brow and spread the force of life far and wide throughout the valley. Even as she did so she heard the scream of outrage from the incandescent monstrosity that had replaced the Tower, sensing the shudder of pain that came from the depraved soul at the very heart of it. For a fleeting moment, they faced one another in open confrontation, two minds, two wills, two soul spirits – and she felt the weakening of her enemy.

  The lightning still poured relentlessly out of the Alan’s brow, tearing through and around the roiling furnace, erupting skywards where it struck, flattening overhead against the black mountains of clouds that had grown into a gigantic mushroom of darkness, and then cascading back down again in a cataract of twisting, spiralling devastation that extinguished the raging furnace of the Tower. And still the First Power continued to pour out of Alan as if his rage was limitless.

  How brave he was! Surely there was nothing left to fight in the great ball of lightning that had replaced the pulsating red. Kate’s heart flooded with admiration for him. She poured out her love for him through the oraculum in her brow, only wanting the terrible vision to stop. But it didn’t stop.

  Her voice was little above a whisper. ‘Mo, I don’t think he can stop. I don’t think he’s in control of it any more.’

  Mo’s face appeared to glow. There was something going on with Mo but Kate was too stressed to take it in. Her friend spoke urgently, ‘The Witch is defeated.’

  ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  Kate stared uncomprehendingly at the new apocalyptic shape that was rising out of the ruin of the Tower. She watched as the colossus swelled and expanded, rising until it seemed to bury its head in the clouds, high above the dwarfed figure of Alan in the field of ash, then threw back its great horned head and bared its fangs, roaring with triumph into the maelstrom of clouds.

  Mo fell silent, staring with Kate at the distant figure of Alan, and toying with the amulet she wore about her neck. She looked so very different from when Kate had seen her before being carried off to the Tower; this new Mo was hardly recognisable. How tall she had grown, her face longer, hauntingly beautiful. Kate blinked, realising that there was also something different about the amulet she was holding onto. It wasn’t the bog-oak figurine she had expected. It was something circular, and pulsating with light. Kate caught a glimpse of a crystalline disc in which flickering motes and arabesques formed and reformed in a perpetual metamorphosis. The light of the disc was illuminating Mo’s face from below, highlighting the rapt expression of this rapidly maturing young woman.
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br />   Kate thought, I’m not sure I know Mo any more

  She grabbed hold of Mo’s hand, staring into the eyes of her friend, and trying to understand what was going on. ‘Mo – you know something I don’t. What is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘It’s the Witch, not Alan, who has lost control.’

  Staring skywards at the monstrous figure, Kate was stunned. She found herself falling back onto the oraculum in her brow, examining the scene as if through a third eye. Her gaze found Alan, his distant figure looking so tiny and brave before the towering inferno that was the titan. Suddenly he looked more vulnerable still. With a cry of anguish, Kate saw that he had switched off the attack, the oraculum in his brow now spent.

  The Dragon King

  The voice that spoke to Mo – that had been speaking to her from the moment Alan had first attacked the Tower – came through the Torus. It was the same voice that had spoken to her in the cave of the City of the Ancients. Now it was telling her what had become of the Great Witch.

  Gone – destroyed.

  ‘Alan won?’

  Through the First Power, the Mage Lord, Duval, has initiated the fate that was pre-ordained here, at the Tower of Bones. He was assisted by the weakening of her purpose wrought by your companion, in restoring life to the land through the Power of Mab. Through both their courage and endurance a great wrong may yet be righted. That wrong led to the wasting of these lands. It began long ago – before ever the Great Witch came to the Tower. So it was that even as the Witch imagined that she was fulfilling her own destiny, it was a much greater power and destiny that lurked and conspired beyond the veil of reality.

  ‘Then, in destroying the Witch, Alan may have completed the resurrection of the titan?’

  This was ever Fangorath’s purpose. Knowing so, we gave you the Torus in anticipation of this moment. Now that he has been resurrected he will look to complete his original aim. He will attempt to open the portal that was sealed on his original destruction. In this he must not succeed. To prevent that happening, a terrible battle, fought out long ago in this very place, must be fought anew.