Sixty-One Nails
Page 43
"No," said Blackbird. "It is ours to choose who endures. I will stand. "
"You can't," I blurted. "What about–"
She grabbed me and pulled me aside, shaking her head in warning. "One moment. We must confer. "
"What are you doing?" I whispered, once we had a little distance between us. "I thought I would do it. "
"You can't even swim." She dismissed my argument. "No one's going to swim carrying that." I pointed down to the hammer resting on the anvil. "It weighs a ton."
"You can't even bear to be near it, Niall. How are you going to carry it?"
"I'll manage somehow. You can't be serious. Not now." My emphasis of the word was not lost on her. "This way perhaps we may all survive. I will carry it across." Her voice was filled with doubt.
"But water's not your element. You're fire and air, not water and stone."
"It is my responsibility. I was the one who called trial. "
"No. I forbid it."
"You cannot forbid me." Her chin lifted and her eyes gleamed green in the dark.
"I've run out of visions, Blackbird. There are no more clues, no more mysteries to solve. All the pieces are played. My fate is decided here. You said I wouldn't make the dawn, but I did. If it was fortune that brought me here then it is my ordeal to be endured, not yours." I softened my voice so as not to be overheard. "I ask you. For my sake. For the child's sake. Let me do this. "
"You must come to your decision," said Raffmir from behind me.
Her eyes suddenly filled. She shook her head. I pressed my hand against her warm cheek.
"I have an additional condition," I announced, turning to him.
"And what would that be?" Raffmir's voice held challenge.
"By the laws of trial, is it true that once the matter is decided then the parties are free to go unmolested and neither hunted nor persecuted thereafter?"
"The law says the parties may not cause each other harm by the knowledge they have gained nor contest the matter further," he agreed.
"I want my daughter and the smith included in the parties," I told him. "If I undertake your trial then you will let them be, whether my daughter shows her Fey lineage or not. "
"That's highly irregular," he told me.
"You invoked my daughter's name here, Raffmir. You brought her into it and made her part of it. And if I succeed the smith must be free to complete his work without interference, threat, or fear of harm," I reminded him. "Very well," he agreed.
"You cannot!" Solandre interrupted him.
"It doesn't matter," he told her. "He will not succeed. The barrier will come down and everything will change. We are simply agreeing that us two will not cause them harm or cause harm to come to them. But that only applies to you and me."
"You cannot set others to harm us either," I reminded him.
"That would be to cause harm. We will let them be. It is agreed, isn't it, my sister?"
"You presume too much."
"Once the barrier is down many things will change. Two girls and a renegade smith are like autumn leaves in the mouth of the storm. Let him have his way. "
"Very well," she conceded. "But I will not fail again, Raffmir." She turned those mean colourless grey eyes on me. "I will have his soul. "
"Then I will stand."
The look that formed on Solandre's face was something I will never forget. She was like a spiteful child who had stolen a sweet and got away with it. I displayed a confidence I did not feel and smiled into the face of her spite.
"Peace, sister." Raffmir was all charm and smooth words again. "Retrieve your hammer, then, Dogstar, and we will see what transpires."
It was what I needed. By including Alex in the protection of the trial I had secured her safety whether I succeeded or failed. I could undertake the ordeal in the knowledge that Alex, Blackbird and the unborn child she carried would survive, whatever the outcome. At least until the world fell apart.
Twenty-Seven
I turned back to Blackbird, finding her drawn but resolved. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" she asked.
"It's not ideal," I told her, "but it's the best that we
can make it."
"Very well."
She leaned over the rail and called down to Ben, explaining about the trial and telling him what she wanted him to do. "If Niall succeeds in getting the hammer across the river then they will leave us and you can finish the work unmolested. "
"And if he doesn't?" asked Ben.
She paused, glancing sideways at me, then spoke back to the figure below.
"If he doesn't, get away from here as fast as you can. Get back to your family. Keep them safe. "
"What about you?" he asked her.
In my mind's eye I could see her, escaping to some distant forest to raise her child, our child, alone among the trees.
"I won't be staying." She shook her head. "I can't stay." We agreed we would all remain on the gantry until Ben had transferred the hammer to the bank near to where it had been stored. Then he would return to the anvil to await the outcome. It was as near to safe as we could make him. I still had the memory of standing in Meg Highsmith's kitchen, trying to explain that the task was not without risk and that others might try to stop us. Warning her did not make me feel any less responsible. At least this way he would return.
"It's waiting for you," he called up to us, and then to me, "Are you going to be OK?"
I looked at Blackbird and she held my gaze. She would not look away. "We're doing what we must," I told him.
Raffmir and Solandre were arguing on the bank next to the gantry. Raffmir's reasonable tone was underscored by her hissing and spitting. If he hadn't been there to hold her back then I think she would have gone for us, law or no law.
I trusted Raffmir's sense of honour. To him this was all a game. He liked it. He liked the play of it. That was why he had allowed me to include Ben and Alex in the deal. He was playing to win and it suited him to raise the stakes. He had not even considered losing. I had come to understand that it was this unshakeable confidence that gave the Feyre their power. The magic was there, regardless, but like a razor edge it was inert until it had intent. For that they needed belief in themselves. Solandre was different. I suspected that she was used to being feared and respected, but that had been thrown into doubt when she had failed to kill me and had been forced to excuse her failure with tales of a half-breed mongrel wielding gallowfyre. She'd told me in the glade that they had not believed her, that they'd said she was hallucinating or dreaming. She'd begun to doubt herself and that doubt had eaten away at her like the rot she had spread into my bedroom door. Doubt was not something the Feyre could afford.
I trusted Raffmir, but I feared his sister. I feared she was no longer sane.
I turned to Blackbird. "I don't trust her."
"Nor I, but the law here is strong. Her life is forfeit if she goes against the trial or its outcome and she knows that."
"I don't think she cares. She's not rational anymore. "
"I'm not thinking about her," she said.
And there it was. The thing she had agreed I should do was the thing she believed would end me. "I've been living on borrowed time, remember?"
She turned her face away, but I caught her chin and turned it back to me. Tears brimmed into her eyes, running carelessly down her cheeks.
"Have faith," I told her.
"I do," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. If I could think of another way…"
"There is no other way."
She pressed herself into my chest and I wrapped my arms around her, her head resting against my shoulder. I breathed her scent, which wrapped around me even in the foulness of the fetid tunnel. She was a private breath of sunshine and, for that moment, she was mine. "Are you prepared?" Raffmir's voice was expectant, keen with enthusiasm. "I am ready," I told him.
Blackbird hugged me one last time and I lifted her face to plant a damp kiss on her lips. I smiled for her. If we were doing this th
en I wanted it over with. I climbed down first onto the bank where we had retrieved the hammer, with Blackbird climbing after me. I called my thanks to Ben. He'd left the hammer close to where the rungs were set, leading down into the dark water. As we approached it the hackles rose on the back of my neck and my senses jarred at it. Carrying it was going to be an ordeal, even without the water.
I wiped my palms on my trousers where they were greasy with slime and sweat. My spine was prickling and my head ached with the wrongness of it. I would try and make this quick. The less time I had to spend near the thing, the better.
Raffmir descended the ladder and produced a lace handkerchief to wipe the slime from his hands and from the edges of his sleeves. He was as fastidious as a cat and the expression on his face as his white hanky took on the green-brown stain was almost worth enduring the trial for. Solandre stood at the top of the ladder. I knew it was petty but I looked forward to her getting her hands dirty. Instead, she stepped lightly off the gantry and floated gently to the ground, her skirts billowing around her legs. Another benefit, I supposed, of not being entirely anchored to reality.
Disappointed, I turned back to the hammer.
I could not escape the sense that it was somehow alive, brooding darkly, waiting for its opportunity to hurt me. It would not have long to wait.
Ben had secured a sling around it with some blue nylon rope. I blessed him, as it would mean I could descend into the river without having to hold the hammer at the same time.
Raffmir objected. "You cannot have the rope. You must carry the hammer across yourself," he asserted. Blackbird corrected him. "Actually you said it must be taken by he who stands trial from one side to the other. You did not specify the means by which it should be carried."
He hesitated, and then allowed that it was what he'd said. He didn't look happy about it, though. "Very well, but he may not throw it or pass it across. He must take it across the river himself. "
"Agreed," I confirmed.
I had never liked water. Not since the day I had almost drowned. I claimed I'd never had the time to learn to swim, but the truth was that I could always think of something else to do rather than that. With the hammer, though, swimming was not going to be an option. It would weigh me down like an anchor.
Ben had bound the rope around the head and down around the end of the handle forming a sling of sorts. It looked well-tied and secure.
"Which way up do you want it?" Blackbird must have been steeling herself because she looked relaxed as she went over to it. Whether this show was for my benefit or theirs I could not say.
"Put the head at the bottom. That way it will be easier to manoeuvre. "
"Just don't touch it by mistake, OK?"
The worst part was picking up the hammer. Blackbird helped me, even though it must have made her flesh crawl to do it. She slipped the nylon rope over my head and shoulder so the hammer was slung across my back. It made my bones ache, my nerves jangle and my muscles cramp and twitch, but I would bear it. I was determined to see this through.
My stomach knotted and twisted and I comforted myself that it was not the thought of the river turning my guts, but the proximity of the hammer. As I stood, finally prepared, Blackbird brushed my hair back from my face in a gesture I understood. It was enough to raise the ghost of a smile, though in truth I was feeling sick from being so close to the hammer. There was nothing left to say. Looking down at the flow, I was sure that if I simply tried to cross the stream then I would be swept away. The current had risen while we were there, fuelled by the rain from the world above, and the whole width of it would be treacherous. For a moment my mind filled with the thought of it invading my nostrils, choking my mouth, slipping dark and cold into my lungs until it starved me of oxygen, leaving me scrabbling for air. "Ready?" Blackbird's voice broke into my thoughts. I nodded once, telling myself it would be OK. "May fortune smile upon you."
Fortune was all well and good, but I was not intending to leave this to chance. I smiled back at her, not daring to linger or I would give myself away.
I had come up with a plan.
I could try and explain to her, but it was better that she didn't know. I wasn't quite sure whether what I intended was within the strict laws of the trial, but it would meet the conditions that Raffmir had set out and I was relying on his sense of honour to hold back his sister when, and if, I endured. I was not without hope, but I would keep my secret to myself.
If my plan worked then I would carry the hammer from one side of the river to the other. However, it was important it looked right, otherwise there might be room for them to contest the validity of the ordeal. I had to make this look good.
Crossing the stream physically was not part of the plan. Once I was under the surface and out of sight, I would put my hand on the sixty-first nail which was tucked into my pocket and use that to create a path through the void to the other side. As long as I could stay focused, the slight time delay would give the illusion that I had struggled across and then I could emerge victorious with the hammer.
They would have to allow it. As Blackbird had said, they had not specified the means or the manner of my crossing the river, only that I must carry it across myself. I was tempted to do it from the bank. He hadn't said I had to use the rungs or even enter the water, but I did not want to leave room for doubt. I would suffer the brief torment that carrying the hammer down into the water would inflict to make sure there was no room for them to wriggle out of their promise.
I sat down on the cold bank, hanging my legs down over the edge. The damp seeped into the cloth of my trousers. No matter. I would be wetter and colder shortly.
Being careful to mind the hammer I leaned back and rolled over so I could drop my legs over the edge and seek with my foot for a toe-hold. There was no handhold at the top and I guessed the rungs had only ever been intended for emergency. My hands were aching where I held the wooden shaft of the hammer so it would not slide over the edge and drag me backwards into the water.
After a moment my toe found what I thought was a rung. I tested my weight on it and it held. Below it was another. I scraped backwards slowly, easing myself over the edge. I let the sling take the weight of the hammer and let it swing free behind me. It pulled into my shoulder and banged back against my leg, momentarily numbing my thigh muscle.
I eased back and down, and when my head was level with the bank, Raffmir said, "Farewell, little brother." The look of smug satisfaction on Solandre's face made me even more determined to make my plan work. I stepped down again and felt the first touch of water around my feet. The damp bricks had been chilled, but this was icy. I lowered myself further. The current tugged at my ankles and calves. It got harder to find the footholds with the water pulling at my trousers. I told myself it would not be for long. Twisting around, I looked across the gap of twenty or thirty feet to the other bank, the line of rungs descended there into the water. I fixed in my mind the clear picture of the other wall so I would be able to find it through the void. The water came up to my waist now, chilling the whole lower part of my body. The hammer swung slightly as the head was buffeted by the current. Water soaked into the bottom of my shirt. I took another step down, and another, holding tightly to the rungs to keep from being swept from the wall. At chest height in the water, I lowered myself again, wondering how deep it was and how much further down I could descend. The water swirled against me, dark and oily. It smelled of rain-stormed streets and flushed gutters. Pieces of litter were swept by along with darker, less identifiable flotsam. I was just a head above water. It was now or never.
I looked up one last time, hoping to catch Blackbird's eye. Instead Solandre's face leaned over, watching me. I did the only thing I could think of with both hands clinging to the rungs. I stuck my tongue out at her. The expression of outrage on her face as she turned away to tell Raffmir was worth the moment of bravado. He would see the joke and it meant she would miss the moment when I slipped below the surface. I was glad of that.
Being careful to avoid accidental contact with the head of the hammer, I released one hand from the rung. The current swung me sideways as I let go and the water pressed me at an awkward angle. My wrist scraped against the roughness of the bricks. I found my pocket and fumbled with rapidly numbing fingers for the nail. Weed slipped across my face. At least I hoped it was weed.
My fingers wormed their way inside the sodden pocket and my hand found the metal of the nail. I wrapped my hand around it, feeling the answering echo of the void within it, sensing it fall into blackness in my hand.
Already running short of oxygen, I focused on the nail and formed a link with the core of darkness within me. The universe parted for me and the many overlapping and intertwining worlds were there, but there was something different, something wrong. There was a weight, an anchor holding me to the world I was in. The iron of the hammer would not come through. I twisted and pulled in the water, pulling the hammer around in front of me. I wrenched at the void and it answered, distorting space around me. But the hammer stayed. It was solidity where everything else was fluid. It would not move.