He fought his way through the wind, searching for the door to the sanctum sanctorum, when he felt something sting his arm. Glancing down, he saw blood on the sleeve of his tunic. Then something bit into his leg. It was not the demons’ claws, he realized, but debris. Ahead, he could see a man-size hole in the tower’s outer wall. Smoke and wind poured through the hole, and all around it were demons, spinning their arms and whipping the wind into a frenzy that flung bits of shattered stone through the air. Ciarán shielded his head as another piece glanced painfully off his forearm. Most of the debris was small, but it hit him like a swarm of hornets, and soon blood was welling from many tiny wounds. Then he saw the door.
It stood in the inner wall, just ten feet away, and though wailing demons blocked the way, he could see through their ghostly forms to a symbol on the portal: an eye beneath a curved brow, glowing with Saint Elmo’s fire. Like the ankh, it was a symbol in Coptic texts: the Eye of Horus. Wondering how these symbols related to the Fae, Ciarán pressed his way toward the door, doing his best to ignore the stinging pain.
Then, without warning, the direction of the wind changed, the sudden new blast knocking him sideways. The wind pushed him toward the breach in the outer wall while, all around him, the scores of demons looked on, their burning eyes and gaping mouths wide with bloodthirsty glee. His feet skidded on the rubble as he staggered backwards, only just catching himself at the ragged edge of the breach. His left arm flailed in the open air, and for an instant he glimpsed the battlefield some fifteen stories below. His left leg dangled outside the breach, but his right hand clung to the edge of the gaping hole, and he struggled to pull himself back inside the tower.
He tried bracing his right leg inside the broken wall, but he still hung precariously halfway out of the breach, unable to buck the buffeting wind that threatened to suck him outside to his death.
The demons surged toward him like a wave. Cascading over his dangling body, they pulled and wrenched at his limbs with their phantom claws as a loud cheer rose from the besieging army below. Then one of the iron beasts let loose with another thunderous roar. The projectile whizzed over Ciarán’s head and struck the outer wall, several yards above the breach where he hung, but the shuddering impact sent him sprawling forward onto the stone floor. He tried to ignore the shooting pain in his shoulder, for he realized he was back in the tower—and just eight feet from the door.
The demons’ wind screamed above him, so that if he stood up, it would blow him back into the breach. So Ciarán began to crawl. The smoke, caught up in the wind, stayed inches above the floor, and he sucked in enough clean air to keep moving forward. The demons crawled over him, hissing and howling and prying at the wall he had erected around his mind. But he pressed on, keeping his thoughts on Derry and his gaze on the Eye of Horus.
Reaching the door, he lunged against it, only to have it fly open into the room beyond and send him stumbling to the floor. Behind him, the wind sucked the door shut again. Exhausted, Ciarán took a long breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself staring at a stone tile embedded in the floor. An ankh had been carved into the tile, and surrounding it were more tiles with more symbols, as if Remi had recreated his madman’s shrine, but this time with the precision of a master artist. Many of the symbols were Fae sigils, like those in Maugis’ book, while some were astrological signs, and others were distinctly Hebrew in shape. Still others appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yet it was the source of the amber light in the center of the chamber that captured Ciarán’s attention. For in the middle of the sanctum sanctorum stood a round pedestal, and floating above it was the source of the glow: an object that made him gasp in awe.
Enoch’s words repeated in his mind: “For at the end of the whole earth, I saw a great and glorious device.”
At the object’s center was a brilliant gemstone the size of a large denier. This was the source of the glow, yet the object around the stone was in constant flux. One moment, it was a chalice of gleaming gold, with the gemstone embedded in its stem; then the bowl collapsed and the base elongated, its color shimmering as gold became steel. At one end of the lengthening blade, a hilt and a cross-shaped guard appeared, the gemstone embedded in the pommel. Then the sword grew longer still, its steel darkening into a black staff. What was the sword’s hilt morphed and shimmered into a golden ankh, with the gemstone glittering in its center. And then everything around the gem—the ankh and staff—was sucked into it until nothing was left but the stone, glowing in the air above the pedestal. A moment later, the bowl of the chalice sprouted from the top of the gem, and a base grew beneath it, shimmering until it solidified into gold, holding its shape for a moment until the shape changed again, repeating the cycle.
From cup . . . to sword . . . to staff . . . to stone.
Ciarán watched, fascinated, until he realized that set in the floor surrounding the pedestal was a ring of twelve tiles, each bearing a symbol of the zodiac. Four of the tiles glowed more brightly than the rest: Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius—the symbols of the prime conflict.
Ciarán knew what must be done, and he recalled clearly Orionde’s words: “When you see Enoch’s device, remember the form it takes in this millennium, and seize it.” Outside, another boom echoed, and the chamber’s walls quaked with the impact. We’re running out of time, he reminded himself.
He approached the pedestal and waited through the transformations, from staff to stone, to chalice, until the blade of the sword grew from the cup’s base, and the hilt was fully formed. Then, wrapping his fingers around it, he drew it from its place above the pedestal.
The sword felt heavy in his hand, but its form held. He stared at the diamond-bright gem embedded in the pommel. A flickering light danced across its facets for an instant before fading to a dull-gray opacity, blending with the iron of the hilt.
He glanced back toward the door, wondering for an instant why the demons had not poured, gibbering and howling, into the chamber. The answer came quickly. Orionde had called this place “sanctum sanctorum”—holy of holies. Hallowed ground. But as soon as he stepped out of the chamber, he would be back among them, and dangerously close to the gaping breach in the outer wall.
He looked again at Enoch’s device, this fabled object that, according to Isaac, contained the stone etched with the one true name of God. Other than the gemstone in its pommel, it had no elaborate metalwork or adornments—just a dark leather grip, a sturdy guard, and a long, double-edged blade of gleaming steel. Ciarán swung, and the blade whooshed through the air. It felt well balanced in his grip. It was time. He drew a long breath and let it out, then pulled open the door and stared into the mass of demons.
Their squeals had hushed into a buzz of anxious whispers. At the sight of the weapon, the eyes of the nearest demons sprang wide. Ciarán turned at the hip, swinging the sword straight through them. The first demon it struck exploded into crimson flames, as did three more, leaving not even a smoking remnant of their existence. Feeling a surge of hope, Ciarán arced the sword upward. The blade passed through demons as if through thin air, and the five demons in its path flared red and were gone. The demonic horde broke into a terrified wail. Then, with a loud sucking sound, those still living turned and fled through the breach, taking the wind and black smoke with them until nothing remained in the chamber except Orionde, standing at the doorway to the stairwell, a faint smile on her lips.
“Now,” she said, “you are ready.”
*
Ciarán and Orionde hurried down the stairway, through the lingering haze of smoke. As they passed the fourth doorway on the way down, another crashing impact rocked the tower, and a shower of rubble collapsed onto the stairs behind them.
“We have little time,” Orionde said. “You must take the weapon from the Otherworld before the Dragon arrives. I can lead you to the nearest gateway, at the forest’s edge, but first we must fight our way clear of Rosefleur. Among my sisterhood, only seven remain, but we are formidable. Yet
once you have crossed the gateway, you still will not be safe. The Nephilim prince can pass through the gateway, too, and in the valley beyond the forest, a war rages. For the count of Anjou has laid a trap for the duke of Aquitaine, and now the air of that valley is thick with the souls of the dead.”
“Can’t the other Nephilim follow us through the gateway?” Ciarán asked.
“No,” she said. “Long ago, the druids of Gaul sealed the gateways to the Otherworld so the Nephilim could not pass through. Only a powerful summoning, like that of the sorcerers who serve the Dragon, could weaken this seal and bring the Nephilim prince to your world. That same sorcery allowed the prince to pass freely through the gate, just as you and your companions have done.”
As they passed the last door and descended through the archway that led to the armory, the thought of this powerful Nephilim prince began to unnerve Ciarán. He struggled once again to keep pace with Orionde’s long strides, until she stopped at a rack draped with a knee-length hauberk of polished mail, and a leather baldric hung with a scabbard.
“These belonged to Maugis d’Aygremont,” she told him. “Wear them.” She took the baldric and hauberk off the rack, as well as a thick wool jacket worn beneath the mail. “The warriors call it a gambeson,” she said. “It will cushion the shock from a weapon’s blow.”
Ciarán looked into her ice blue eyes. “You trained Maugis and sent him to claim Enoch’s device from Merlin’s tomb in Britain.”
Orionde nodded. “Along with Fierabras and Roland and the warrior-maiden Bradamante. The knowledge of Enoch’s device and the prophecy were the most precious secrets of the paladins of Charlemagne.” She handed Ciarán the armor. “Now, wear this and walk in their ways.”
Sobered by Orionde’s words, Ciarán looked at the mail, then at the sword clutched in his hand, and realized the place he now took in the chain of history—and the grave challenge that lay ahead. His thoughts ran back to Niall and his long-bladed knife, then to Murchad and Bran, Áed, Alil, and Fintan. And the battle cry that inspired their courage: “Columcille!” It was true, he realized. Monks weren’t natural warriors, but the warrior’s spirit lived in every drop of Irish blood, and in desperate times it could be summoned. So Ciarán donned his hauberk and readied for battle.
*
On the tower’s ground floor, the barnlike hall had become a staging area for war. A Fae woman with hair like spun gold had dressed Alais in an oversize tunic of silver mail unlike any she had ever seen before entering this Otherworld. There were no chain links, but scales with the textured patterns of a swan’s feather, bound together with tiny silver rings. The other Fae had donned similar hauberks, along with helms adorned with eagle plumes, and bore long spears that jutted like deadly thorns above the cavalry. Even their horses, which stood in ranks in the form of a wedge, wore armor with the same feathery texture.
Alais tucked Geoffrey’s pendant beneath the neck of her mail tunic, which seemed far lighter than she had expected. But looking down at herself draped in this strange armor, her eyes welled with emotion. The woman in white, this Orionde of the Fae, had found her in the field of wheat by the Anglin River, not far from here. Had this been why? To guide her to Geoffrey, his secret, and this quest? But Orionde had told her to choose, and Geoffrey had given her a choice. She had kept her free will, yet here she was.
You have yet another role to play, Orionde had told her.
Amid the booms of the Nephilim siege engines, and the lethal debris cascading from the ceiling with each shuddering impact, she found the mystery of Orionde’s words almost frightening. Oh, Thadeus, she prayed, if only you were here to make sense of this.
Wiping a tear from her eye, Alais glimpsed movement coming down the stairway. As the figure came into view, she blinked in astonishment. For it was Ciarán, though in his hauberk of polished mail, riding boots, and baldric blazoned with Celtic designs, he looked more like one of William’s lords. And in his right hand was a long, double-edged sword.
Orionde followed him, and as they reached the bottom steps, the walls shook with another violent crash. Alais winced at the loud crack that resonated from the ceiling, showering the floor with rock shards and mortar dust.
Ciarán looked awestruck when he saw her standing beside their pale charger. “You look like one of them,” he said.
“And you . . .” Her eyes fell to the pommel of his sword. “Is that . . . ?”
“Yes,” he said, holding it out to her, hilt first. She brushed a finger over the gemstone in its pommel and gasped as fire blazed from the jewel’s depths and rippled across the diamondlike surface. The opaque gray shone white for an instant, then faded again as her touch left it.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Orionde says we must take it back to the Val d’Anglin.”
“That’s what they’re preparing for,” she realized aloud.
He counted the horses, eight in all. “We’ll ride together,” he told her.
Orionde strode past them. She wore a silver helm plumed with a broad white feather. At her hip hung a sword belt with a sheathed blade. Mounting the destrier mare tethered beside theirs, she said, “Don’t unsheathe the weapon until we have broken past their ranks, or the Nephilim prince will sense its presence. Are you ready?”
He sheathed the sword. “As much as I’ll ever be.” And he swung up into the saddle and helped Alais up behind him.
Orionde called to her warriors in a beautiful foreign tongue, and the Fae raised their spears and bellowed a cheer that echoed through the hall. Alais, with her arms around Ciarán, felt his muscles tense beneath his mail. The gate opened, to the drumming of shields and the howling of madmen. At the head of the column of riders, one of the warrior-maidens sounded a horn, cutting through the cries of the hundred spearmen awaiting them on the red plain. And the Fae set their spears and joined in a fierce battle cry.
Alais wrapped her arms tightly around Ciarán’s waist and whispered a prayer to Saint Radegonde. Then the Sisters of Orionde charged.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE DEATH PIT
Behind Rosefleur, the death pit glowed a fiery red. A column of smoke wafted from its depths and gathered overhead in a swirling black vortex humming with the whispers of demons. The air stank of brimstone and ash, and the smoke mingled with the clouds, blocking out the sunlight and leaving only the pit’s hellish glow. Through powerful sorcery, the pit had been cracked from the earth according to ancient ritual, in a span sixty-nine feet long and forty-six feet wide. Around it, twenty-three black-robed monks chanted in the Nephilim tongue, feeding their power to the ritual. From the chasm, a deep growl echoed, and hearing it, Lucien of Saint-Denis grinned a wicked smile.
His hands were slick with blood, and his dagger dripped red from the last victim he had slaughtered. A hundred of Fulk’s men had been sacrificed to the pit—unwitting victims all, whose murdered souls fueled the sorcery of the Nephilim high priest. The giant stood naked, his chalk-white flesh painted with runes, chanting the incantation that would break the Dragon’s bonds and free him from his prison. With each sacrifice and each unleashed soul, the high priest’s power grew and the Dragon’s bonds weakened. Lucien’s anticipation teetered on the verge of ecstasy. The Dragon would be his savior. For Lucien knew that he was now anathema. The ritual murder of a hundred innocent men had sealed his fate with the enemy of God.
Lucien called for another victim.
Behind him, one of a pair of giants drew a prisoner from the crude cage that held the hundred or so who remained. The giant, a heavily muscled Nephilim, carried the naked prisoner to the edge of the pit. He was an Angevin, no older than seventeen judging by the thin, wispy beard on his chin. The boy did not resist, for Lucien had sedated him and the others with a brew of mandrake root. Instead, he sat on his knees, staring vacantly into the death pit. The wind whipped, blowing the cowl from Lucien’s head as he readied himself for the kill. At first, the cold-blooded murder had sickened him, but after a few, the sickn
ess had settled and, in time, blossomed into bloodlust, for each killing drew the Dragon closer to this world.
Lucien grabbed the boy’s hair and jerked his head back, exposing his neck. Placing the dagger at the boy’s throat, he uttered a prayer in the Nephilim tongue.
Then, over the high priest’s chanting, came a man’s scream. To Lucien’s surprise, it had not come from his victim.
Across the pit, a sorcerer fell, arms and legs flailing, into the abyss. The man next to him turned in horror, and then he, too, toppled over the edge, blood streaming from a wound in his side.
Lucien’s jaw dropped. For where two of his sorcerers had stood was a dark-skinned man with a curved Moorish blade. He whirled like a demon from Lucien’s nightmares, slicing into another of the oblivious sorcerers lost in their ritual song. The black-robed man fell screaming into the pit.
But now something beyond the death pit held Lucien’s gaze, for the treetops were strangely wreathed in blue flame. The surrounding air sizzled, and then, with a great sucking moan, the wind sped toward the cage, swirling violently and drawing red earth into its midst, building into a cyclone.
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