Her sigh enchanted him. ‘A promise is a promise!’ Her body curled around him, her warm softness overwhelming all of his senses. Mark felt faint with the promises she was whispering into his ear. But then, as her beautiful mouth, lips parted, extended towards his, he imagined her face replaced with the ugly snarl of his adoptive father. He imbued that face with the pain of every unwarranted punishment, every mocking insult that had been directed at him and the sister he loved – the sister he had been unable to protect. His heart filled with a bitter guilt, a guilt that filled his entire being, the guilt of self-loathing. He no longer cared what happened to him. As her mouth closed on his, he thrust Vengeance through the heaving breast, burying the blade right to the hilt.
In death, the power of the succubus was broken, and Mark found himself in the embrace of a wizened creature centuries old, the mouth toothless except for the four fangs of needle-sharp canines. As he shook this obscenity off the blade, he felt a piercing pain in his back. He twisted his head around to see the Garg’s wing-talon withdraw, still dripping venom. Immediately he felt the poison enter his flesh and begin to spread. He wheeled through half a circle with Vengeance extended, severing the gargoyle head from the creature’s shoulders, a good two feet higher than his own. But in that same moment he heard the scratchy patter of more talons on stone as other Gargs descended the stairs into the cellar.
He rushed to follow them, but a blow from the hilt of a heavy weapon struck hard against the back of his head.
He turned again in falling. Three legionaries had appeared behind him, together with a smaller, evil-looking man holding a dagger with a twisted blade. It was the heavy hilt, black metal decorated with glowing silver that had struck his head. With horror, Mark recognised the sigil of Grimstone’s beloved master. As he struggled to get up off his knees, the man pressed the dagger into his throat and Mark felt a second poison burn into his flesh. But then the small man hesitated, his attention distracted by the spectacle of Kate’s unconscious body being carried up the cellar steps over the shoulder of a Garg.
Mark tore himself free of the man with the dagger. He pushed himself upright, struggling to stop them taking Kate. But the legionaries still pinioned his left arm so he was powerless to strike. The small man turned back and smiled, his red-veined eyes wide with anticipation. He wriggled the tip of the blade deeper into Mark’s throat, while relishing his anguish at the sight of the Garg taking flight with Kate’s auburn hair clasped in its feet. With a great clattering of wings it soared skywards, wheeling through the smoke and missiles.
The small man continued to torment Mark, preparing to deepen the wound and twist the blade. But a sudden blow from a heavy blade clove his head in two. All of a sudden, the area was empty of Garg and legionaries. A helmeted and mailed figure stood over Mark, battle-axe twirling.
‘Qwenqwo – is … is that you?’
The emerald-green eyes fell on him, their gaze melting from battle rage to concern. The dwarf mage fell to one knee, supporting Mark with an arm around his shoulders.
‘Aides!’ he roared.
Suddenly others appeared. Two Aides helped Mark to stand, though he was tottering from the poisons spreading from the wounds in his neck and back. He couldn’t bear to face Qwenqwo, who had put him in charge of protecting Kate. His head fell. Despair was like an iron fist squeezing the air from his lungs.
‘I failed you!’
‘No, my friend! You did not fail me.’ Qwenqwo spoke softly, taking a flask of healwell from one of the Aides and lifting it to Mark’s lips. ‘But there is little time – if you would claim your destiny!’
Overhead, more and more Gargs were circling. The sky was filled with the beating of their leathery wings.
Mark swallowed, feeling the healwell penetrate the membranes of his throat. He felt a little revived, although the poisons coursed through his blood. Yet he had heard Qwenqwo use that same word as Granny Dew – destiny! Was it possible that even in despair there was a last ray of hope that remained open to him?
Thunderclouds lowered over the blazing citadel as Alan gathered what strength he had to confront the Legun. Mo, with the help of Granny Dew, was somehow holding it, absorbing the greater part of its malice. But Granny Dew had already warned him that Mo couldn’t hold out for very much longer. He felt a heavy hand clamp his left shoulder and he whirled around to find the injured Ainé once more on her feet, her right arm dangling uselessly by her side. She tottered, the matrix in her oraculum pulsating weakly. He could see that she was mortally wounded.
‘There is little more I can do for you,’ she panted, her pallid face awash with sweat. Then her blue eyes widened and a spark of awe lit them, as if from her inner spirit. ‘Yet I thank the Powers that I should have lived to see the arrival of the Heralded One!’
Her left hand moved to touch his brow, and her oraculum began to pulsate more strongly, as if drawing spiritual strength from him for a final act of defiance. ‘Help me.’
Alan gazed into Ainé’s eyes. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Preserve these, my memories, for my daughter-sister.’
He shook his head. ‘No – don’t say that!’
‘Give me this comfort.’
He lowered his head, nodded.
‘I would enter blood-rage but my body is too weak. For this I must draw power from you – from the First Power.’
He glanced where the Legun, high on its charger, had eyes only for the tiny figure of Mo. He focused all of his power on Ainé’s Oraculum of Bree. The explosive union threw them both backwards. Alan’s arms rose, in a reflex action, to protect his sight from the blinding cataract of light that emanated from the Kyra.
Only now did the Legun refocus on them.
A single lightning bolt erupted upwards from Ainé’s soul spirit of the white tigress and struck the thunder clouds overhead, spilling out far and wide, like an inverted tree of power, its roots dividing and cascading over the sky. Then it reversed, condensing centrally, as if to massively concentrate its energy, after which a twisting, spiralling vortex of lightning descended, followed by an almighty crack of thunder, to strike the crouching tigress, the spiritual energy imploding to a soul spirit of fire and lightning. Each movement of the tigress’s limbs caused arcs of lighting to spill into the adjacent ground, and its eyes radiated light, like miniature furnaces. With a roar that shook the ground, it pounced, its huge weight and energy tearing into the body of the Legun, its terrible maw aimed for the throat.
The flaring oraculum in Alan’s brow continued to supply every mote of his power to Ainé’s spirit until she retained no vestige of life. But still the Legun prevailed.
Gathering whatever strength he could as the healwell dampened the poisons in his blood, Mark broke into a staggering run, hammering the ground with his booted feet as he climbed above the broken fosse and the burning buildings, above the fierce battle that continued over the plateau. A roar of fury from the Legun below revealed that some new struggle was distracting it. Lifting his face, Mark gazed up at the pentagonal tower, raised like a fist above the tor.
He began the ascent.
As he climbed the first dozen steps of fissured stone, the malevolent reek followed him. He sensed that the monstrous enemy had become aware of him. While confronting others it could still cast its malice in a second direction. He felt it invade his mind, looking for weaknesses. It was attempting to control him. Almost immediately, the shadow of a Garg fell over him. The Legun had summoned it to attack.
Unbidden, into his memory came his tormenting by Grimstone: the earliest recollections, when he was no more than three years old, of the mocking jibes about his true parents and origins – the first wounds.
Your father was a drunk and your mother was a whore. What does that make you?
He couldn’t hide the hurt deep inside him, no matter how hard he tried to dismiss it.
It had taken the Legun mere seconds to discover his weakness.
At once, into his consciousness came wounding
images, memories of other hurts, failures on his part. Mark shook his head from side to side in a determined effort to keep to his purpose.
Still he continued to climb.
A screech cut through the air and a shadow loomed. Mark whirled, with Vengeance raised to strike out at the attacking Garg, whose talons almost raked his hair. The rasping voice of the Legun echoed inside his mind. Deny, then, that darkness rules you, Mark Grimstone!
He ignored its taunts, pressing higher, playing for time, all the while wondering why the monster did not tear him bodily from the rock.
Suddenly the Garg attacked again. It was more cunning this time. Its talons raked his scalp, and blood ran down over his forehead and into his eyes. Mark couldn’t see the rock in front of him. He was forced to stop on the dizzying height of the staircase to wipe clear his eyes with the back of his hand. Even then he could barely feel the steps under his flagging limbs, though they continued to climb.
He turned around. The valley already seemed so far away, so distant. The entire world appeared to wheel around his dizzy head as he drew back his arm, hurling Vengeance at the descending Garg. He buttressed himself against the stone with his right hand, watching the twist and arc of the glittering battle-axe discover its mark, cutting through the main wing bone like butter, the Garg fluttering desperately as it plummeted down a thousand feet. With his left hand upheld, he waited. The central hilt struck his wide-open palm and he closed his fist tight about it.
Weapon and warrior were one.
Blinking the continuing trickle of blood from his eyes, he found a new strength to attack the stone steps.
My master need teach you nothing. The darkness is there in you already, Mark Grimstone!
‘Not true!’ he muttered.
The answering stench of wickedness, of the putrefaction of its hate, almost threw him into the abyss.
As its malice wore at him, the Legun diverted more of its concentration to the lonely figure climbing the steps. Still he opposed it, keeping his face turned into the mountain, his legs climbing, climbing. Against the fury of its spite, he was horribly exposed. But he thought about his love for his sister, Mo, and his friendship for Kate – even Alan. In love and friendship he found the strength to endure the torment that clawed at every lift of his agonised ankles and the scorn that tried to weaken his resolve.
What do these wretches mean to you, fighting their miserable skirmishes in this alien world? Reflect! How easy it would be to relieve your pain!
Mark wrenched his head up to stare up at the looming pinnacle. It was closer now. A couple of hundred feet. But that small distance seemed huge in front of him. And the light was ebbing from the afternoon, as if a terrible darkness beckoned.
The flailing wind numbed his fingers, and he began to lose his footing on the stairs. Still he forced his exhausted limbs upwards, fighting each individual step at a time, while a tormenting giddiness made his senses spin, and in his mind the malignant probe dissected and pried, hunting for the secret places, reaching back into the memories of the maturing boy, discovering the pain.
Grimstone’s voice: You failed again!
‘No!’
A weakness invaded his heart and he fell against the cold stone, feeling its edges bite into his body, tearing at the flesh of his hands and his knees. What else are you cut out for but failure! Your father was a drunk – your mother a whore! The belt rose, hesitated at the top of its arc, before coming down with a hard crack over his naked skin.
‘No!’ Every breath was a groan. ‘My real father cared about me. He tried to show me he cared … when he gave me the harmonica.’
He stopped, striking his forehead against the rock. He couldn’t climb another step. He had to cling dizzily to where he had stopped. Staring back over his shoulder, unable to resist the impulse that was invading his mind, there was no doubting the allure of letting go, of allowing his pain that final release in the tumble, that sheer fall through crackling wind and howling abyss, to end his life on the rocks below.
The Legun was expanding its power over him. In his mind it cackled with increasing confidence.
You were weak. You sold yourself body and soul to the succubus. You betrayed Kate.
‘I was stupid. The succubus tricked me.’
You failed her again when she needed you. You were meant to guard her and you lost her. The Gargs have her now – can you imagine the sport they will have with her?
Suddenly his hands froze on the step in front of his eyes. His feet would not budge. ‘Yes – yes! I failed her. I failed her.’
Take but a single step into the embrace of darkness. There you will discover the end of your miserable existence.
Mark thought about that. Just one step off the edge of the staircase and it would be over. No more torment. But the Legun didn’t care about ending his torment. Mark’s head lifted again to the wheeling clouds, to the few steps above as they turned abruptly leftward, the final ascent. Above him was the pentagonal tower, a black monolith thrust into the stormy sky. His teeth chattered in a bitter exhaustion.
Something came to mind: a memory of climbing these same steps just the day before. He recalled his conversation with Kate about the statue of Nantosueta that adorned the summit. And the centuries of dust in the highest chamber. For some reason, the Death Legion hadn’t dared to climb these steps, not in two thousand years. He took heart from it to shout his defiance at the Legun.
‘I’ve had a worse monster than you on my back all of my life. So you can go back to hell!’
Then, sliding Vengeance back into its sheath, he used both hands to climb. He forced himself onward clinging to the next step, pulling his shuddering frame eighteen inches higher, although the pitch of the staircase seemed almost a vertical climb, with no handholds other than the cutting edges of the steps.
The chasm yawned below him, giddy and nauseating, drawing his will back, pulling him off the face.
He felt a sudden intense stab of despair. It came from outside him, from somebody else … In his confusion, he thought this came from Mo. But how could it come from his sister?
Mark was so worn out he was climbing on hands and knees. Blood oozed from around his fingernails and mixed with the sweat that was dripping from his face so that his hands slipped on the smooth-worn stone.
The darkening sky was suddenly lit up with a flare of lightning. An ear-splitting crack of thunder boomed. The lightning erupted in a great cataract around the tower, and then it coalesced and struck back down to earth somewhere below. Mark heard a roar so violent it shook the tor. He felt the stones shift and grind under him, as if they had been struck by an earthquake. But then – suddenly – release. Something new, a massive blow, had weakened the Legun. The miasma was gone from his mind.
Groaning aloud, he forced himself on. Suddenly, the going was easier and he fell over the topmost step. He staggered through the inwardly sloping jambs of the ancient portal and further into the atrium, there to pause, to gather his breath and allow his heartbeat to settle.
A twist of staircase led up into the projecting pentagon of the tower.
Ignoring the pounding of his heart and the wheezing of his lungs, he ascended the staircase until he emerged under the vault of the sky. He stood on the flat pinnacle, surrounded by a low wall beyond which the Vale of Tazan stretched in a dizzying panorama from horizon to horizon. Here, in the howling of the wind, so high up the tempestuous sky seemed to press down on him like a ceiling, he slumped against the gallery wall, looking down into the despoiled valley, at the pall of smoke and ruin rising from the temple complex far beneath him. Islands of orange flame licked among the great sweep of forests, feeding the black mantle of smoke that rose into the air.
From the sloping forest across the river a grey-speckled mist was rising into the sky. He realised what it was: thousands of Gargs joining the attack. His limbs trembling with urgency as he turned to look up at the colossus that surmounted the pentagonal Rath. Nantosueta! How different she looked from the beau
tiful girl in the woodland glade. This figure was ten times life size, struck from the same enduring granite as the tower that bore it. His limbs trembling with exhaustion and poison, Mark gazed up into that grim face.
‘Help me now, Granny Dew!’
Abruptly, he felt a new force intervene. With gritted teeth, he suffered the dislocation as he was torn away from this stony platform and returned to the cave of sulphurous lava. Here the cobwebbed figure loomed over him, her black eyes peering intently into his. She was tapping a knobbly stick against his ankles as she urged him to follow her, a flaming firebrand in her other hand.
The Third Power
Granny Dew led Mark out of the cave of lava, which now appeared to be an antechamber to an enormous new chamber. As if ignited by the firebrand’s flare, light, brilliant and multicoloured, swept through it in motes that spiralled and flickered like starry galaxies throughout its great spaces. The colours ignited a Milky Way of flickering reflections in the walls, in the quartzite floor and the kaleidoscope of ceiling. In their progress they brushed by straw stalactites, as delicate as ivory hair, glittering with diamantine refractions. From the floor, giant stalagmites sprang up in beautiful reds and oranges, some striated and polished like marble. As if in answer to Mark’s weakening gaze, the glitter of iron pyrites seemed to metamorphose into the glory of a peacock. He saw the bird fan its tail, as if for a moment it had come to real life, and then it reverted to crystal.
‘I don’t have time for fireworks!’
‘Time does not exist here, child!’
What did that mean? Mark felt the poisons surge and swell through his blood, weakening him further from moment to moment. Now that he was dying, was he being given some sort of a final lesson?
He sensed forces, powers that went beyond any normal comprehension. There was sound too, like musical chimes and harmonies, as if the labyrinth were vying in song with the beauty of vision. Mark caught the scents of spring in his nostrils. But all the sights and sounds were doing was wasting vital seconds. When he waved it all away, the movement of his hand evoked a cloud of damselflies, metamorphosing into being from crystalline motes; a second wave brought into life a hummingbird, with its whirring hover; the fall of silver dust became the glory of a leaping salmon, arcing full-bellied through the rainbow spray of a mountain torrent.
The Snowmelt River Page 46