by Simon Kewin
“I think we've climbed through most of the night,” said Hellen. “The sun will be rising soon.”
“Then let's rise to meet it,” said Ariane, setting off again.
It soon became clear she was right. A circle of shadow ahead lightened to grey, to purple, and finally to blue. The clean air blowing on Hellen's face was a joy, lifting her spirits. For a moment she forgot about the screaming pains in her knees.
Half an hour later, they stumbled over the last step and fell onto a little clearing of grass. Rustling trees, blown by a steady wind, whispered around them. The sun, gloriously warm, sparkled through swaying branches. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, while breath and strength returned.
“Well,” said Ariane. “If Hyrn really is here, he'd better be prepared to sail us back to Andar. I'm not making that journey again.”
Hellen pushed herself to her feet. Some days she felt all of her one hundred and fifty years. She offered Ariane a hand and hauled her upright.
They wove their way between the ash-grey boughs of tall trees and soon found the island's edge and the waters of the An. They were looking north. Filaments of mist drifted across the water, hiding everything. Neither bank was visible. They weren't in Andar any more, nor were they in Angere. This was a place between and apart.
Hellen crouched and scooped up a handful of water to drink. It had never tasted so good.
They circled the island. The interior was a mass of trees, leaves fading to browns and yellows, but a lip of green grass ran around the edge of the island, as if it were a well-travelled path. At one point they found a sagging wooden jetty jutting into the water, a small rowing boat moored to it, its timbers green with decay. It looked like it hadn't been used for a long time.
“He was here at some point, then,” said Hellen.
“Someone was, at least,” Ariane replied. “Look, is that a path into the woods?”
“It's badly overgrown. Let's see where it takes us.”
The path snaked between the trees, climbing as it wound around the sides of a low rise in the ground. Birds whistled from the treetops as Hellen and Ariane worked their way through the undergrowth. It was strange to think that birds had been coming here all this time, flying from Andar. Or did they stay there, close to Hyrn? The island was, perhaps, the centre of everything. The heart of the land. The navel.
They had to push through bushes repeatedly as the path twisted around the hill. Eventually it opened onto a flat, wide top. In the centre stood a small, round building with open archways, the trees crowning the hill hiding it from view. Within, beneath a curved canopy, stood a plain, oblong stone block. Upon it lay the body of an old man. Ivy trailed across the little building, climbing the sides of the altar as if it intended to cover the figure, too.
Deep lines riddled the man's face. His skin was so grey that Hellen might have mistaken him for a statue if not for his straggly hair flowing to the floor. It must have been black or brown once, but now it was pale grey and white, all colour leeched from it. Two wounds on his forehead marked the place where the horned man's antlers might once have been attached.
It could only be Hyrn.
“Tell me,” said Hellen. “Back at the door. What did you feel? What did you do?”
“I felt him,” said Ariane. “Hyrn. Ancient and terrible, but wounded and fading. He'd sealed himself away to protect himself, like an injured deer hiding in the woods.”
“But he opened up to your touch?”
“Reluctantly. I had the feeling he was wary of me coming any closer.”
“But he is alive?”
Ariane placed a hand on the stone-grey skin of his forehead. “Barely. The life inside him ebbs.”
“As it must have for a long time.”
“And you really think he can help us, Hellen?”
“If he can't, no one can. The river is his domain. It is because of him the An may not be crossed. I think he pours what remains of his strength into it, keeping Angere and Andar apart. And what he keeps apart he may, perhaps, allow together. For a time.”
“There is madness within him, too,” said Ariane, frowning as she touched his mind with hers. “It's as if there are two voices in his mind rather than one. Two voices that argue and shout.”
“What he did tore him in two, just as it tore the land in two,” said Hellen. “Perhaps his mind is broken as well. We must be wary of him. But if we can get through to him he might be persuaded to help. You said there was guilt in him?”
“Guilt. Regret. Loss. Yes, all that.”
“He blames himself for what was done to the land five hundred years ago. The undain devoured half his domain, like a body eaten by a canker. He could only watch in despair as more and more of his children died. Deliberately sought out death. The land cloven is sick. It is like a lover forever separated from the one they love. It pines and fades, joyless and infertile, torn in two. So it is with him.”
“He has gone very deep,” said Ariane, frowning. “The cold creeps across his mind just as the ice freezes the An. I fear he may be beyond my powers of healing, Hellen. The effort of trying to bring him back would be … terrible.”
“Will you try?” asked Hellen. They both knew what she meant, without having to spell it out. A look passed between them.
“So now you're asking me, not telling me?” said Ariane.
“Neither, old friend. What you do must be your choice.”
Ariane knelt beside the prone figure of Hyrn and laid her hands upon him.
“I've lived a long and happy life,” she said at last, looking up at Hellen. “My only hope now is that others, the young and those yet to be born, have the chance to do the same. I will do what I can for him.”
Hellen nodded but couldn't reply.
“But there's a condition,” said Ariane.
“Anything.”
“Whatever happens, promise me you'll stop those abominations. Stop them eating the whole world. Promise me, that Hellen.”
“I will try,” said Hellen. She stooped to kiss the grey hairs on her old friend's head. “I will. I promise you that.”
23. A Hundred Million Voices
Angere
Cait dreamed again. She stood beside the cool waters of the mountain lake, the ring of peaks around her. Bethany stood half-emerged in the centre of the pool, the water streaming off her hair and hands. The witch-girl drifted closer, eyes closed, skin blue.
Cait dreamed, but she was also aware she was dreaming. This place was inside her mind, so Bethany had said. But was that right? Perhaps it was a real place, an island in the aether that she travelled to. Whichever, she knew that outside, elsewhere, her shivering body lay next to Danny's in the endless dark of the dungeons of the White City, and that there was no hope.
She turned to Danny's spirit, standing beside her, holding her hand. Here he looked like his old self. Not the ragged, terrified boy she lay beside, but the amused, grinning lad from back home.
“So,” he said, “this is what the inside of your mind looks like?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“And the witchy water-girl floating toward us?”
“Bethany.”
“Bethany, yes. She's your long-dead relative whose soul inhabits yours?”
It sounded a bit weird when he put it like that. “I met her at Empire Towers. You remember the rider who grabbed me? She saved me. She and the others. She talks to me sometimes. Explains things.”
“Pretty cool. You didn't feel the need to mention it at the time?”
“Not really the sort of thing you can easily drop into the conversation.”
“I guess. But if this is a dream of yours, how come I'm here? Are you dreaming about me or am I dreaming about you?”
“I don't know. I don't know how any of this stuff works. I guess your spirit's here inside my mind even though I'm asleep. If I am asleep.” In the long hours of darkness they'd huddled together it was hard to know where wakefulness and sleep met.
Beth
any stopped at the lip of the lake, the water up to her waist. “This is Danny?” She opened her eyes and studied him, unblinking, eyes wide. As ever she clutched her tattered rag doll to her chest. “The one who you thought was dead?”
“Yes,” said Cait. “They brought him here because they thought he'd know our plans, know where we were going. In the end he wasn't able to tell them much so they threw him into the dungeons.” Whether they planned to use him to lure her there, or whether they'd just forgotten about him, she had no idea. Greygyle had said he was dead. Maybe he'd believed that, or maybe he'd just said it to hurt her. She'd probably never know. She didn't care. The joy at finding Danny alive was a glowing, wonderful light inside her. Danny wasn't dead because of what she'd done. Danny wasn't dead at all. And grim as their situation was, at least they'd had this brief time together.
She'd thought he'd hate her, blame her for everything. Amazingly, he'd been overjoyed to see her. Being trapped together in the infinite darkness of a city of undead nightmares was hardly a dream date, but more than she could have hoped for.
“Hello, Danny,” said Bethany.
“Um, hi,” he replied. “Nice … lake you've got here.”
Bethany giggled. “He's a good looking boy. I can see why you have all these fantasies about him.”
It was clearly going to be hard to keep secrets from anyone when they were living inside her mind. “You're not seeing him as he really is right now,” said Cait, keen to change the subject.
“Actually, I think I am,” said Bethany. “He's pretty.”
“I, er, I am actually here listening to this,” said Danny.
Was it possible to be jealous of a long-dead forebear hitting on your boyfriend? Maybe it was, but it didn't make much sense. And what difference did it make now? They were trapped and awaiting the end. There could be no escape. They'd tried more than once to find a way out but had found only more echoing caverns, a maze of them, seemingly endless. Once they'd found their way back to the iron gates, but they were sealed with more than just locks and chains, and refused to open.
“I wondered whether our spirits could escape even if our bodies can't,” said Cait. “If we could become like you, Bethany.”
“You mean dead?”
“I was hoping not actually dead. More sort of … free to float away.” She was so weak, so useless. It was the only way out she could see.
For a moment, Bethany stopped being the giggling girl and became the sombre woman. The lost soul. “Life is far too precious to throw away. Believe me, I should know.”
“But there's no other hope,” said Cait. “We can't stop the undain. At least if I was dead they couldn't carry out their stupid ritual.”
“There is always hope,” said Bethany. “We simply need some help.”
“Help from where?” said Danny. “There is no one. The rest of them are stuck on the far side of the river or through the portal. We're on our own here. By the sound of it the Smouldering Fire aren't up to much.”
“You're wrong,” said Bethany. “There are many here who will assist us. A very great many.”
“Who?” said Cait.
“Them.”
Bethany pointed upward. All around, as if responding to a call, figures were scrambling and sliding down the mountain slopes. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Women, men, children. More and more each moment, thronging over the tops to scramble down the slopes to the mountain pool.
“Who are they?” asked Cait, staring in amazement and alarm. But even as she voiced the question, she knew the answer. Greygyle had called it the City of Ghosts. The huge sense of anger and dread she'd felt ever since arriving: she'd thought it was the undain. But no. It was the dead. It was the bones of the city calling into the aether. So much confusion and rage. They were like Bethany's ragged troop of urchins back in Manchester, except there were millions of them.
“They will help us?” asked Cait. “They're on our side?”
“I called them,” said Bethany. “Lost and broken in the darkness, I called them. Some had no understanding of who or where they were. Many burned with rage. Yes, they will help us. Individually they are weak but together they're strong. Very strong indeed.”
A crowd of indistinct, shifting ghosts gathered around the lake, more and more each moment. They overlapped each other, moved through one another. Cait caught glimpses of a face here, the flash of an arm there. She could feel their combined fury mounting like a deep thrumming in the air, like some roaring machine approaching.
“So what do we do?” said Cait.
“I will take their fury and give it to you,” said Bethany.
“You can do that?”
“Yes. But it will be hard on you, Cait. The spirits clamour for release and it will take all your self-control to hold them back. You have to wait for the right moment. Can you do that?”
Could she? She had to try. “I guess.”
“They can be very destructive. You saw a glimpse of what they can do back in Manchester. This many would be very different. They could bring the ceiling of your dungeon crashing down on top of you. And if you set them free at the wrong moment then try to contain them, the damage to you would be terrible. The pain alone would kill you.”
“I understand. Anything's better than being down here. When do we start?”
Bethany smiled, like it was some wonderful game she'd devised. “Now. Wake up and we can begin.”
The damp ground was cold on her cheek as Cait woke. As ever, utter darkness engulfed her, so complete that opening her eyes made no difference. She lay curled in a ball. Danny stirred, his arm around her. They always slept like that, huddled together for whatever warmth they could give each other.
“Come on,” she said. “Time to try what Bethany said.”
“Huh?” His breath was warm on the back of her neck. He sounded confused. For a moment she thought he had no idea what she was talking about. She had dreamed the whole thing with Bethany; it was nothing but a stupid fantasy she'd made up to make their situation more bearable.
Then he said: “Bethany, right. The storm cloud. Yeah.”
He had been in her mind. It was real. He was just waking up, that was all. It always took a minute or two for him to start making sense.
“Storm cloud?” she said.
“Over those mountains. Purple and orange, like you see before the lightning strikes and the torrential downpour comes.”
“That was how you saw it?”
She felt his shrug. “Sure. How else?”
“I saw a great crowd of people. So many of them. I don't know, millions of them. But I get what you mean. A storm cloud is kind of how they felt.”
“And you can do this? Do what Bethany said, channel all that fury?”
“Don't know. Maybe.”
They stood. The ball of rage seethed within her, threatening to ignite, spill out at any moment. Bethany was there too, cradling it, holding it. Offering it. Cait struck a light, something she did from time to time when the darkness got to her, or she heard scuffling sounds nearby. Usually all she managed to work was a hesitant flame that brought more shadow than illumination. This time it was different. A great, sun-like ball of light flared into life above her head with a sharp crack. It blinded her. Alarmed, she struggled to make the light dimmer, stem the outpouring of anger. She had to learn to control the power being given her.
She opened her eyes again. The light was bright but bearable. Danny looked like a startled animal caught in a car's headlights, hair plastered to his head, face filthy. He'd looked better, but she didn't like to think about her own appearance. The hall stretched into the distance, pillars receding seemingly forever. The bones of the walls, with no one to scrub and clean them, were yellow and sepia, stained and rotting. This was what the White City was built upon. This was the decay at its heart. Somehow, though, she almost preferred the dungeons to the shining glory of the buildings on the surface. They were more honest.
“Let's get that gate open,” she said. �
��Get out of here before they come for us.”
“Won't they know what we're doing?” asked Danny. “Won't they be able to tell?”
“I think it's going to be pretty obvious to everyone soon. I can't hold the storm back much longer.” She felt like she was wading through water. Electricity seemed to crackle in the air around her. At the gates she deliberately took it slowly, careful not to unleash all the power at once. The gates creaked backward but stayed shut. Some warding charm worked into the ironwork resisted her. She pushed at it, struggling to contain the flood of rage. The gates buckled and squealed but refused to yield. Unable to stop herself, suddenly impatient, Cait hurled a bolt of fury. The gates exploded outward, crashing against the stairwell in a tangled, twisted mass of metal like the mangled ribs of an animal.
Together, Cait and Danny raced toward the light, desperate to be away from the dungeon. How long had she been trapped down there? She had no idea. Days, weeks. Maybe it was all too late and Andar had already fallen. The air grew warmer as they clattered up the stairs. Perhaps it would have been better to escape at night, when the darkness could hide them, but right then she didn't care. She wanted to feel the warmth of the sun on her face. Her limbs felt as cold as lead, as if the dripping water had seeped inside her bones and turned them to ice.
On the surface, she looked around, confused and half-blinded by the light. The ground shook with the fury of the ghosts. The high walls of the White City seemed to shiver and ripple as if the bones were desperate to twist themselves free, break the shackles of their carved shapes. The city sang its pain.
From one of the high, delicate towers a cracked bell rang, tolling an alarm. Thundering footsteps came running, hundreds of them. Before Cait and Danny could flee, undain soldiers and dragonrider giants flooded into the square. Seeing the two of them, they charged forward at crazy speed, rapidly forming an impenetrable ring.
And Cait, closing her eyes, set the terrible rage boiling inside her free.
The fury of what she unleashed threw her and Danny to the ground. A wall of seething red blasted outward. The whole world shook, rattling her skull. The raging red engulfed the undain, hurling them backward, scattering them like leaves in a gale. She glimpsed the occasional form of an individual ghost amid the fury, swooping with glee, but mostly there was only a single cloud, removing everything in its path.
