They made the passage around the Ring regardless; nine circuits in the bitter dark, only the candles’ flames to guide them. Step by careful step, always tensed for the tremor that would throw them out into the void, they eventually made it through.
Then the cold had gripped Cam, and he wrapped his arms around his chest. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he shouted above a howling wind. Snow crunched underfoot. Around him, a vast plain of white stretched away beneath a driving storm of sleet. The sky above looked no different, and Cam experienced the strange sensation of being stuck in a pale, stinging box.
They stood in the centre of a circle of massive, weather-worn boulders. The Tattooist – eyes spitting and flaring, melting the sleet before it got to his face – walked quickly over to one of the boulders and began to trudge through the knee-high snow. Cam followed, his teeth chattering. Soon darkness encroached once more, and the freezing cold of the wilderness was replaced by the simply numbing cold of the void.
‘Where was that?’ Cam asked.
‘Bouvet Island,’ the Tattooist replied, his voice distorted as if coming from underwater. ‘It’s a small island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It belongs to Norway. It just happens to be where the Ring comes out on Earth. Keep going – we need to make the next transition quickly. The tremors …’
‘Right. Bouvet Island. It was cold is what it was,’ Cam noted. The Tattooist didn’t bother answering. They continued to walk around the Ring, following the spots of light that mapped its circumference. Again, they managed to pass without incident, and Cam said a silent prayer of thanks when they finally stepped out into The Tower at Dusk.
The room they emerged into, Cam was soon to find, was quite typical of the rest of The Tower at Dusk. Rush torches flamed and sputtered in regular intervals along the walls; thick tar covered the brickwork above each one, stretching up to coat the ceiling with a viscous black slime that dripped down in occasional coagulated globs; and the floor was sticky and unpleasant to walk on. Just like the Green Man pub, Cam thought.
Although architecturally identical to The Tower at Dawn, it couldn’t have had a more different atmosphere. Where The Tower at Dawn seemed a sad, austere place of polished stone and swollen light, this was an infinitely more vibrant place. The air was not dry and dusty; it was hot and thick with humidity and smoke. The place felt lived in, crammed with life and sluggish vitality.
Around the centre of the room flickered a series of candles, identical to the ones in The Tower at Dawn. On one wall were a couple of pegs with black robes hanging on them. The Tattooist walked over to them. He threw one at Cam, and the Elf struggled into it.
The two made their way back to the apartments’ entrance hall. It was strange for Cam to walk into this place, familiar and yet so different. For a start, the remnants of a zombie apocalypse weren’t waiting for them with faceless grins. That was the only good thing.
Flesh crawling, Cam looked around at the Tattooist’s entrance hall in The Tower at Dusk. Soft, flickering flames did nothing to light the huge room. The staircase was bathed in shadow, the windows were black and dead, and the arch leading out onto the balcony leaked a heavy midnight-blue glow that promised to suck you into its depths forever. More spots of tar, black and liquid like freshly spilled blood, covered the floor. The ceiling was lost in the gloom, and the walls were fouled with more of the smoky sludge. The treacherous lighting had prompted Cam’s question. The Tattooist ignored him, so he asked again.
‘What’s with the crap lighting? It’s straight out of a Hammer Horror.’
‘The Svartálfar prefer it; the shadows give them places to hide,’ the Tattooist answered.
Cam looked around nervously. He shuddered with the sensation of being watched by unseen eyes. ‘Svartálfar … God. I thought they’d died out.’
‘They are as alive as you or me. Come now, we must get to the top of The Tower.’
Cam hesitated, confused. ‘Aren’t we going down – to find the Maiden?’
‘Things have changed. We have no idea where she is, and without Grímnir we have no chance. The magic of the tattoos gifts him the ability to sense when those of the Courts are near him. Without Grímnir there is no future. We have to go back and bring him out. But we cannot go back the way we came, so we must push on.’
The thought of going back into the depths of The Tower at Dawn made Cam feel sick with fear. He hid it. Grímnir was his friend after all, and Dow hadn’t been that bad. Pushing the reloaded shotgun under his robes so it was out of sight, Cam nodded at the Tattooist. The creature’s eyes flickered in what Cam suspected might have been amusement, but he said nothing. Instead, the massive Ifrit walked to the main doorway.
‘Try and hide your face in the hood,’ the Tattooist said. Grumbling, Cam pulled the heavy material further over his forehead. The cloth was coarse and itchy, and the already stifling atmosphere was unbearable under its weight.
All he could see were his feet, his trainers popping out from beneath the hem of the robe every time he took a step. ‘If anybody realises you are an Elf,’ the Tattooist said, ‘they will kill you. Do you understand?’ Cam wordlessly pulled the hood further down his face. He heard the huge door open, and they stepped out onto the bridge.
Unable to see anything but down, Cam concentrated on making his unsteady way across the ridiculously narrow space. Unlike The Tower at Dawn, the depths did not have a faint glow. It was a dark, dead space, and he couldn’t see farther than the weak penumbra of the infernal torches, mounted haphazardly on the walls either side of the span. In a way, he was grateful.
Soon they were walking through more smoky corridors. Occasionally they came across a quiet Ifrit, making his way here or there on some unknown errand. Sometimes these apparitions spoke to the Tattooist in the True Tongue, a simple greeting in passing. Nobody looked twice at Cam.
The hours-long journey in The Tower at Dawn took considerably less in The Tower at Dusk. For a start, they didn’t need to move cautiously for fear of being eaten by an enraged horde of slavering monsters. Secondly, the Tattooist seemed to know the twisting corridors like the back of his hand. Cam went along meekly, following the Tattooist’s flapping sandals as he strode ever onward.
Corridors got busier the farther up they travelled. More Ifrit populated these levels. Knots of them spoke in low voices, their eyes casting flaming pools onto the floor as Cam passed.
Without warning, Cam stepped onto fine sand. They were outside, under natural, almost purple light, and breathing cleaner air. He followed the Tattooist for a few more feet before he stopped.
‘I think you can put your hood back now. Nobody comes out into the desert.’ Cam pushed it off gratefully and took a great gulp of sterile air. His surroundings seeped into his consciousness, and he gaped stupidly.
The roof of The Tower at Dusk was a desert, with no gardens, no trees, no flowers nor streams nor animals. A great expanse of sand stretched out under the half-light of the dark sky. The strange haze made distance difficult to comprehend. The lack of landmarks and the twisted light of a just-set sun turned the top of The Tower into a landscape of hollow shadow and washed out purple, like a forgotten moonscape.
‘Where are the gardens?’
‘There is no sun. There can be no life. Besides, the Unseelie Court prefers it like this. Come.’
Wordlessly, Cam looked back. Behind him, the turret stood forlornly in a sea of sand like a single broken tooth, rotting in a black mouth. Behind it, the sky was a promise of madness.
Nothing had ever spoken to him like that sky spoke to him. It was a gash in the dying evening, as if somebody had rammed a cold knife into blackened skin and dragged it down. Ethereal fog, spider web bright, spilled from the dark contusion in a tangle of hazy smears.
The clouds around it were steel feathered emptiness, lost nothingness. The rest of the sky was dark; only the vicious wound over the turret hinted at where the sun had died. Glowing a soft indigo on the edge of touch and reason, it was a boiling mess of vaporous ruin; a s
lit, leaking wispy ichor from God’s belly, or perhaps a malevolent, blinded eye. He felt like reaching into the maelstrom and grabbing something, pulling it out, dragging it through the gases that slewed slowly from the chasm in the dead twilight.
Scared by the way that awful, broken sky made him feel, Cam turned away from it. Seeing that the Tattooist was quite a way ahead of him, he started to run. No wonder the denizens of the Unseelie Court were all so bat-shit crazy, he thought to himself as he caught up with the big Ifrit. He was still reeling from the grandeur of the tortured dusk when he saw movement ahead. Somebody was walking towards the turret. Whoever it was would pass less than a hundred feet away from them.
‘Your hood,’ hissed the Tattooist. Cam pulled it over his head, but figuring the twilight and distance would hide his features, he left it up enough to see the newcomer.
Whoever it was trudged slowly from the direction of the Fairy-Ring. Cam watched, wondering if this was one of the dreaded Svartálfar. It didn’t look like one, but then he didn’t really know what they were supposed to look like. As the figure got closer, he frowned in consternation: Something was very familiar about …
Cam gasped as he saw the face of the person strolling through the desert. Then he ducked his head, lest he was also recognised. Once the figure had passed, he stopped. The Tattooist stopped with him.
‘What?’ he asked impatiently with flaring eyes.
‘I think we’re in a lot of trouble,’ he said faintly.
After the guards took him into custody, Marcus became catatonic. His father visited him, but Marcus refused to speak; he just stared vacantly into space. A physician came and Marcus sat, unresisting, as he tried to bleed him. Eventually he left, his scalpel unable to open his skin for more than a few seconds before it healed. The word ‘witchcraft’ was said more than once, though Marcus barely heard it.
Only when his father tried to send him back to Rome did Marcus become animated. He fought the guards who tried to put him in the coach, shouting that he had to stay, that she would be born here, and that he had to be here to save her. His ranting earned him a spell strapped securely to his bed. They didn’t take him back to Rome though; Marcus later learned that his father was unwilling to let society know his son was a psychotic murderer, and even had his name removed from the family rolls.
Not that Marcus cared. He returned to catatonia, not sleeping, not eating; he gradually got thinner and thinner. Yet he did not die. Abandoned in his room in the Mamucium fort, a living skeleton, his only company was the old caretaker who looked in on him twice a day to see if there was any change. Occasionally his father visited, but not often.
It was a waking nightmare he could not break from. He sat and stared, but behind his eyes the same things went around and around in his head. He would see himself kill Octavius, kill Annaea, and he would run to the oak and hang himself. Then the Maiden would come to him, and every time his hatred swelled.
‘You will live forever, Marcus,’ the Maiden of Earth and Water had told him. ‘You will live, but so shall Annaea. You will never know when she is born, or what she will look like, but she will be reborn within fifty miles of this spot. She could be any age when she dies, but she will die on every fiftieth anniversary of this day. I know it seems cruel to you, but it is necessary. Without purpose, the years would sear your mortal soul away in insanity. You must live for her, Marcus. You must span the centuries for her, and for me. If you can save her, Marcus, then the spell will be broken.’ She had smiled. ‘If you can save her.’
So it had gone. Eventually, Marcus retuned to the world, began to eat again, drink again … but not to live again. His only purpose was to break the curse upon him. Every fifty years for two millennia Marcus struggled to save his Love, and each time that he failed another small part of his humanity slipped away. He still loved her, but now all he hoped for was to give her a chance at living.
He had seen her die at twelve and at twenty, at thirty and at forty-five. She had been kicked by a horse, drowned in the river, raped and murdered by soldiers, beaten to death by her husband, tripped and banged her head, been hit by cars and lorries, and once even a train. Her deaths had been quick and they had been slow, but every one had been violent, and every time Mark had failed to protect her.
Sometimes he never found her. Sometimes he was only moments away from saving her. Once, in the late nineteenth century, he had seen her gunned down by a burglar right in front of him. In that cycle, he got close to her from a young age, wooed her, married her, and vowed not to let anything happen to her. On the day of her death, he told her they would stay at home. Dismissing the servants, he made Annaea promise to remain in their bedroom while he waited at the bottom of the stairs, sword drawn, face grim.
Her scream made him run to her. He burst into the room just in time to see a pimply youth pull the trigger of a dirty, old flintlock pistol. The killer ran – jumped through the window with a face white with terror, while Mark cradled his dead wife in his arms. The pain of that cycle had been incredible because they loved again for a few short years. After that, he vowed never to get close to Annaea again.
It could be argued, he supposed, that in a way he was blessed – he could spend time with her every cycle, and in the long run it would add up to a lifetime or more. Mark knew it did not work like that. The pain of her passing was so terrible, that it was easier to distance himself from her, watch her, and live vicariously through her. Maybe he was a coward, but he no longer cared. All he wanted was to break the spell and die, so that she might finally live.
Torturous year followed torturous year. Whenever Annaea was murdered, Mark dedicated himself to tracking the killers and bringing justice down upon them in terror and violence. Sometimes he managed it; it did not help. He became adept at hunting men, and soon turned his skill and wrath towards the fairy folk who had cursed him.
He never found the Maiden of Earth and Water, but he found others. Tall creatures with beautiful features and pointed ears, dark men with flames for eyes and a penchant for human flesh, giants with incredible strength, and insubstantial wraiths that vanished into the shadows at will. He learned to kill all of them. He stalked them, watched for their weaknesses, and then turned his curse against them.
Revenge was empty, though. He saw Rome fall and realised the truth in the Maiden’s words. Humbled before the steady advance of time, he watched the area that bound him to Annaea’s resurrections grow into a thriving industrial town and then a major city. His immortality held no joy; every fifty years he watched again as Annaea died in blood and pain.
That day was tomorrow. This time he would not let Annaea die. He would not let Tabitha die. Standing up, he decided to find his reincarnated wife and her brother and tell them everything. Maybe he could convince them of the truth.
Maybe he could save her if she knew. It was a desperate hope, especially with the strange new monsters arrayed against them – Tabitha’s husband included – who seemed to desire her death. It was worth a try. He still loved Annaea … Tabitha … with all his heart. He saw the woman he cared for in her eyes, and it wrenched his soul to be so close to her and not be able to hold her.
If he could save her, then she could live; on the one hand, he wanted that more than anything. On the other hand … well, he was tired. He could not live for another fifty years. He needed to rest. He needed to die. Saving her would see the magic end, and Mark would finally be at peace.
‘Mr. Jones,’ said Jason from the door.
Mark’s eyes snapped up. ‘What is it, Jason?’
‘Sergei … he’s back!’
‘I guess the Master will have to rethink his game plan now, huh?’ Sam asked Leach. The other man stared at him with those blank, bulbous eyes and then turned his attention back to the big house.
They were sat together in a car, and Sam could smell a greasy, fishy tang coming off Leach. Sam continued to speak, unperturbed by either his companion’s stoicism or smell. ‘I mean, he’s put all his money on those we
ird Barghest things, and one of them ends up dead in the first skirmish. They may have been nigh on invincible back in the day against clubs and spears and shit, but it doesn’t look too good when you bring high explosives into the equation.’ Sam sniggered. ‘I mean, they’ve got fucking rocket launchers now. How do you think one of those freaky bastards would do against a bazooka? Or a tank, for that matter?’ Sam began to laugh. Leach ignored him.
Cú Roí was furious when he found out one of the Barghest had been killed by the men who came for Tabby. It was the first time Sam had seen the creature truly angry, and the display frightened him. Cú Roí’s face had twisted up; his features seemed to elongate, his pointed teeth grew in his jaw, his skin became mottled and creased. His eyes shone white, and his hair stood up on end as wild energies fizzled through it. He roared, and the noise was awful. The Barghest cowered at his feet, and Sam bowed his head.
The human, Sergei, shit his pants. Even though he couldn’t see what was going on, he began to cry after fouling himself. For a moment, Sam thought Cú Roí was going to kill them all in a fit of madness. Then he calmed and questioned the man, Sergei. The human told the Master everything. He was pathetically eager to please. Cú Roí barked some orders and disappeared deep into the bowels of the Mayfield Station. The human stood nervously with Sam and Leach. Without the goggles disguising his face, Sam recognised him from the Hilton Hotel incident.
Back in the present, Sam stretched in his seat and continued with his soliloquy. ‘I remember what he said to me – we’re easy to produce but we’re … what was it? Oh yes, “fickle and untrue”. But the Barghest – oh, the Barghest are fucking super weapons. “With a thousand, I will rule the world.”’ Sam adopted a deep echoing voice, trying to mimic Cú Roí’s telepathy.
Immortals' Requiem Page 26
