by Mike Shevdon
"Whoever put it up here was a taller man than me or he had steps to climb on," said Ben.
"Shall I get the ladders?" I asked him.
"It's fine. I can manage."
He dragged the toolbox over and stood on it to give him the height he needed. Neither Blackbird nor I offering to help since we could both feel the vibrations from whatever was contained there. It had the same malevolent nature as the anvil and although that was a promising sign given what we were looking for, it didn't make it any easier for us to bear.
There was a scraping noise, audible even over the rushing water, and Ben used both hands to draw down a huge hammer. Blackbird and I both stepped back from it.
"It's a big 'un, isn't it?" Ben said, hefting it down to the floor. "It's much bigger than I'd have thought it needed to be. Are you sure it's the right one? "
"Oh yes." Blackbird was standing back, hand braced against the wall. I backed away towards the ladder up to the gantry. The cloying rankness of it pressed against me, like a weight on my chest.
"I might need a hand getting it over onto the island." He scanned the darkness between him and the island. "We're not going to be much help to you there, I'm afraid, Ben. I don't really want to be any nearer to it than this and I think Rabbit's too close already." I turned and scrambled back to the gantry ladder just to get away from the thing. Ben had said it would be tuned, but if it was then it was tuned to a note so sour, so off, it made my spine cringe to hear it.
I heard Ben behind me, asking Blackbird how he was supposed to get the hammer over to the anvil. As I reached the top of the ladder I could see that getting the hammer across was going to be the least of our problems. Far down the tunnel above the falls a familiar flickering light was dancing across the vaulted roof. "We have company!" I shouted down to them. "They're coming down the tunnels. Use the ladders and get over to the island. I don't think they'll be able to touch you near the anvil. "
"Who is it?" he shouted.
"Not friends, that's for certain. Just get there as fast as you can. Blackbird and I will try to delay them, but start work on the knife as soon as you can. "
"It's not quick work," he called up to me.
"Never mind. The hammer and the anvil will hold them off. They won't be able to touch you." I hoped it was the truth but uncertainty rankled in my throat as I said it.
He grabbed the ladders and began sliding them out to make a walkway across to the island.
Blackbird climbed up to the gantry after me. I stepped over to offer her a hand up.
"They've come," I told her. "They're coming down the tunnels. I can see the light of the gallowfyre reflecting off the walls."
We watched the growing light and the outlines of two dark figures making their way swiftly along the ledge at the side of the dark water.
"Shit!" she said. "I did wonder when they spoke before of the seals being intact on the door whether they had placed a warding on the door to warn them if anyone opened it. They must know we have the hammer. "
"If Ben can finish the knife then maybe they'll just leave?" I suggested. I tried to keep the note of hopeless optimism out of my voice.
"They're not going to let him leave these tunnels, Niall. They came to stop us."
"He has the hammer and the knife. Maybe he can use them to protect himself?"
"While he stays on the island, he's probably as safe as he can be, but they won't leave him there. They don't have to do anything. He's so exposed and he can't stay there forever. There are two of them and they're very good at waiting. "
"Can we hold them off?"
"We'll have to. It's too late to leave now anyway." The light was starting to flicker on the walls behind me as they approached.
"Blackbird…" Suddenly there were things I needed to say, things that stuck in my throat, not because they were lies but because they were true.
"You can tell me later." She lifted her chin, the determination showing in her eyes.
I nodded once and turned to the growing light in the tunnel.
Twenty-Six
Blackbird and I stood together, waiting for the Untainted to reach us.
We were at the only crossing place, the gantry between one side of the dark flowing water and the other, our backs to the thundering waterfall. To get to where the smith was re-forging the knife they had to face us. If I'd had more confidence in our ability to hold them off, I might have felt better about it.
Ben had crossed the river to the island below the falls, drawing the ladder across behind him. He had immediately started his preparations to work on the knife, spurred on by the arrival of the intruders. If he could finish the work then we might stand a chance of getting away.
As we turned our attention to the flickering light approaching down the long tunnel upstream there was a terrible sound. The clang of the hammer on the anvil was a sweet dissonance. It built in a steady tonk… tonk… tonk… tonk… until I thought it would jangle my nerves apart, but what came after was unspeakable. When the hammer hit the knife it was a jolt of agony. THANG!
Vibrations jarred into the core of me. Everything sang in a fraction of a second of pure torment. It was like having something jab into the nerves of your teeth. I shook myself, trying to shed the dying echoes and concentrate on the approaching threat.
Two figures were picking their way carefully along the walkway on the left-hand side of the tunnel. They were approaching rapidly without seeming to hurry. I recognised the first from the long Edwardian coat he had worn as he had thrown his arms wide while Blackbird and I pressed ourselves into the shadows behind him when we had been hiding in the shadows of the vaulting below. His features were a mere outline, silhouetted against the dappled light spilling up onto the archway of the tunnel. His gawky stature and the finicky way he picked his way past the more noisome debris on the walkway identified him without needing to hear the rolling baritone of his voice. It was Raffmir.
I also recognised the figure following him.
Unlike Raffmir who was moving quickly but carefully along the walkway, she moved easily. The long flowing pleats of her skirt rippled over the uneven surface without catching on the broken edges. She was tall, dressed in a long grey dress that only served to bring back the memory of a circular glade under a crystal sky. I realised now what I should have known all along. The slurring shambling figure that entered my flat and lay hidden in my garden, the one who we had encountered here in the tunnels and who had sensed our presence despite the dank smell and the thunder of the waterfall was the same woman who had drawn me to the frozen glade. It was Raffmir's sister who had called me lost brother and cornered me at the hospital. It was her darkspore I had burned away with gallowfyre. Except that this was neither a dream nor a walking corpse. This time she'd come in person. Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!
The sound rang again down the tunnel, reverberating in the confined space. I cringed as pain jabbed into the back of my brain, echoing the hammer blow. The tunnel around Raffmir dimmed and faltered as the sound reached him, and he halted, uncertain of his footing in the onslaught of sound. Then he recovered and continued towards us.
They had come to prevent the re-forging of the knife and we were the only thing in their way. I glanced at Blackbird who was standing proud and ready. I squared my shoulder and reached within to the molten core of emptiness there. I opened myself to its call and let the darkness spill through me and out over the water, my own rippling light echoing that of Raffmir. Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!
Again the hammer strike rang through me. The link with my inner core faltered momentarily as the sound of the hammer rang out. The glow from Raffmir faltered and for a second we were in darkness, surrounded only by the dying echoes and the thundering of the water over the falls behind us.
As Raffmir approached the gantry, his glow returned, as did my own. Fingers of shadow spilled out from each of us, worming out across the light between us as he reached. Gallowfyre tentacles swelled out and seemed to grapple, playing out
the conflict in shadowed shifting moonlight between us.
Each of us tested the defences of the other. Where it touched there was a pressure, a sense of other, defining the boundary between us. At the boundary, a shimmering light flared into being, a purple so dark it was almost invisible. It hung like an ultraviolet curtain across the water ahead of us, defining the border between two powers, the wall of light flexing and bending like a dark aurora where we tested each other's strength. It was Raffmir who called to us. "Greetings from the Seventh Court. We wish to parley."
Blackbird answered for us. "What is there to speak of?"
As she called out, Ben started hammering again.
Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!
The light faltered and the pressure between us dissolved. I struggled to regain my connection with the void. Raffmir was a split second faster and he took a bold step forward as his light spilled out over the water. I found my link and my own light flowed out again, the darkness I called from within buffeting against his. "You know we have come to prevent the knife being re-forged," he called out. "You stand between us and our goal. "
"And?" said Blackbird.
"First of all I would request you to ask your smith to pause in his labours so we may have a rational discussion. Otherwise this could quickly come to a ruinous conclusion. Let us try and resolve this in a civilised fashion, if that is possible." His tone reminded me of an English gentleman, forced into an unpleasant situation but prepared to discharge his duty nonetheless. Despite having to call over the muted thunder of the water, his tone was relaxed and warm, though there was an underlying menace to his smooth words.
"He's finishing the knife," Blackbird assured him.
"Then a moment or two of rest while we speak will allow him to approach his task with renewed vigour, will it not?"
"If I ask him to pause, you and your companion will do us no harm in the meantime? You will not move any further forward or take any advantage?"
"You stand between us and him. What can we do?" he asked, stretching his arms wide.
As he finished his sentence, the sound of the hammer began again.
Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!
Again, my link with the void faltered and once more he was faster than I was. He took another step forward, his sister edging up behind him.
"We can talk," said Blackbird, a little too eagerly. She turned to the rail behind us. "Smith! Hold your work. We have a situation up here." She was careful not to name him, giving them no advantage they did not already have.
Ben paused, shouting back up to us. "You mean it? "
"Yes. But if anything happens to us, just finish it. Agreed?"
"Right you are." The tapping prelude to the strike of the hammer ceased and Blackbird stepped back to my side. Even though the hammering on the anvil was necessary to our task, it was a relief that it had paused. "If your companion will stand down, then I will do likewise," Raffmir offered.
Blackbird looked towards me and then nodded.
I eased my hold on his defences and, as I did, he recalled his gallowfyre. It wound back towards him like a great tentacled beast slipping beneath the surface. I recalled my own and had to smile as the image repeated itself.
"Now, we can talk. Yes?" Raffmir spoke smoothly, unexcited.
"The smith has stopped work, but he'll continue if anything happens to us," Blackbird told him. "What do you want?"
"I would have thought that was obvious." The voice floated across the black oily water. "I want the barrier to fail and the world to return to the way it was, the way it should be," he explained.
"It can't," I interjected. "Too much has changed. The world belongs to people now, human people. You can't turn the clock back," I told him.
"Oh, I don't want to turn it back. Humanity has its uses after all, but I'm afraid that the balance of power will have to change. Humanity must learn some respect." He laughed in a warm rich tone at his own joke. "And how do you propose to teach them that respect?" I asked him.
"Ah, well. That is where the old ways are the best, don't you agree?"
"No, not really."
"And there you have it. You have a mixed background and it clouds your judgement."
"They will not give up their hold on this world easily. They have developed considerably while you've been elsewhere."
"I know. My sister and I have watched them. They have come far, but they still have nothing to rival the power of the Feyre. Speaking of power, that's an unusual talent you have there. "
"Talent?"
"Summoning gallowfyre is not a talent usually displayed among those you refer to as the Gifted. Do I have the term right?"
"That is what we call ourselves, as you call yourselves Untainted," answered Blackbird.
"Quite so. You see, my sister was sent to kill your companion and she failed. She came back with a story about a human summoning gallowfyre and no one would believe her, certainly not those that set her the task. But it seems she was neither dreaming nor hallucinating? "
"It appears so," I admitted.
"And do you know how you came to inherit such a gift? "
"Do you think I would tell you if I did?"
"I suppose not, but there's little harm in asking," he shrugged. "You do realise you cannot stand against us? "
"We won't know until we try, will we?" said Blackbird.
"Your companion hasn't yet the control to match my own and my sister hasn't even begun to use her considerable talents. You will die here if you defy us. "
"Then why are we even having this conversation?" she asked.
"I am giving you the opportunity to withdraw. There is no need for us to come into conflict over this. We are of the same blood, are we not?" The taint of falsehood hung over that last sentence.
"And you'll just let us walk away, will you?" Blackbird asked.
"Of course. There will be time later to engage in the settling of old scores."
"And the smith?"
"The smith stays," he stated in a cold voice, but then warmed again. "Surely we are not going to come into conflict over one measly human life?"
"You forget," said Blackbird. "We are each part human ourselves. Human lives mean more to us than they do to you."
"Your own lives should mean more. Leave now and we'll spare you, this once. "
"We are not leaving," Blackbird told him.
"Come now, he knows he cannot best me and you are no match for my sister. We already know which of us is the stronger."
He was right, but I had remembered something else. "It is true that you bested me in our first contest. But that was before I knew you. That was before I could name you, Raffmir."
There was a momentary pause. Then he erupted into laughter, a chocolate sound, completely at odds with the situation. "Oh, that's rich." He laughed. "I won't ask how you came by that name because you wouldn't tell me. "
"Your sister told me."
I dropped it into the dark pool of his laughter and it faltered.
"I did not!" Her denial was filled with spite.
He could hear the truth in my words so he would know she had indeed told me, though not the circumstances. I blessed Blackbird for showing me that trick in dealing with Fenlock and Carris. The name might give me the edge I needed.
He turned to her and spoke in low tones for a moment.
"Never!" she screeched. "He's lying, I tell you."
"It's almost as if she doesn't know what she's saying any more." I used the same oily tone he'd adopted with us.
"Shut up!" she spat. "Half-breed mongrel scum."
"Peace, sister. I would love to know how he came to know that name, but it matters not." He addressed himself back to me. "Will you bargain with me, then? We both want something, do we not?"
"I don't want anything from you," I told him.
"That remains to be seen. Come, there must be something I can be tempt you with?"
"You have nothing I want."
"On the contrary, I can
offer you the one thing no one else will. I can offer you a place for you and for your daughter. I spoke to her, you know?"
"She wouldn't speak to you." Now I knew who had called her mobile.
"You left her number on the phone-pad in your flat. It said 'Alex new mobile'. Unusual to give a boy's name to a girl. Initially I used the telephone but it said she was out of the area. I could still reach her, though." I kicked myself mentally. I had been through the flat three times and I had still missed the numbers written on the phone pad in plain sight.
"There is nothing you could possibly offer us."
"Has your companion not explained to you how things are yet? How interesting." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Has she not told you that you will never be accepted into the courts of the Tainted? The Six Courts are very fine, and they accept humans, mongrels and pure Fey almost without discrimination." He laced his words with sarcasm. "But they will never accept one of the wraithkin. "
