Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  He passed through the arch, glad to be off the stair and away from the void, but he saw that much lay between the inner and outer skins of the Spire. To left and right there were doorways and stairs, landings and passages, many of them numbered, but bafflingly so. Some ways were sealed behind iron doors, while others stood open. All directions led off into darkness, but near the stairs thin lancets admitted spears of daylight. Better still, the ground was dusty and there were scuff marks. He followed the trail to the foot of a stair and climbed higher, pausing occasionally to make sure he was still closing on his quarry. When he had mounted to the forty-ninth stair, the Spire suddenly grew meaner in its decoration and he halted again, oppressed by a mighty warning from within.

  Was Chlu now in his trap…or was it the other way around?

  The idea still troubled him that Chlu had led him into the Spire on purpose. Why? Why should he think that? This was certainly a place where he would be stripped of Gwydion’s help. And if Chlu had not gone north with the fleeing queen, then maybe Maskull hadn’t either…

  The air was rank here. The musty smell had grown worse. Will tried to swallow his burgeoning fear, but tasted the taint of death. He took stock. Each flight of stairs was plainly made now, every one a little narrower and steeper than the last. He had come to unfrequented heights, and whereas the floor had been greasy with spots of old candle wax, now the stonework was bare. Stark landings opened onto the great void within the Spire, and the stairwells through which he climbed looked down dizzyingly past dozens of floors. Flimsy iron rails were set around the edges, low enough that Will imagined himself crashing through. But at least the mute statues had disappeared along with all the carved and patterned marble. Here was only dust and pigeon droppings on the grey flags, and around him plain arches and slender pillars of iron, so that his journey seemed to him shadowed by the shedding away of earthly power. He saw that an ascent of the Spire was meant to parallel the life of a Fellow, from his entry into the Fellowship up through the various grades and degrees, losing his sense of self, until finally he came to death. And here, written in stone, were the austere last stages of the journey that an Elder made into the darkness as he departed his sour life.

  A shriek shocked him out of his thoughts. He heard groaning and grinding in the bowels of the building. The nearest of the pursuing Fellows was still many floors below. It would be some time before they arrived. Yet Will was forced to search each landing before moving on, listening warily now so as to be certain that no ambush awaited him and to make sure that Chlu could not double back and slip past him.

  Will could not easily tell how high he had climbed. All he knew was it was a long way. His breath came in gasps and his legs ached. And there was that foetid smell again, something vile that carried down on the draughts lacing these dismal corridors.

  As the Spire narrowed, so the fear of Maskull weighed more heavily on Will’s mind. He cast about for ways to encourage himself. ‘Chlu thinks I fear the Sightless Ones,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘He chose this as his refuge because he thought I wouldn’t come here. I bet he hasn’t counted on being hunted down. He hasn’t bargained for this!’

  He clenched his fists. No fear, not even the fear of Maskull, would undermine him. This time Chlu was going to have to turn at bay. This time he would be brought to account.

  Something heavy lashed out at him from the gloom. Will ducked and it glanced off the top of his head. A length of chain clanged then pulled taut, wrapping itself in a spiral grip around the nearest pillar. He saw his chance and slammed his fist into Chlu’s face, but Chlu put his head down and Will felt the bones of his hand jar in pain as his punch connected instead with the bow of Chlu’s skull. Chlu roared and charged him down onto the filthy floor, then reached out again for his weapon. But Will kicked out with his foot and the force of the blow threw him back. They both watched as, between them, the chain unwound itself from the pillar, snaked slackly over the side of the staircase and vanished.

  It was as if a spell had been broken. They roared at one another and came to grips again, falling down, rolling over and over. Dust swirled up, stinging throat and eyes and blurring everything that Will saw. His knuckles were soon skinned raw, but every punch he landed drew a reply and every kick a counter. Thoughts of the aid that magic might give in the moment of last resort were no comfort to Will, for he knew that powers taken for granted were powers that betrayed. And when Chlu put a deadly hold on his neck, he found he could not summon the power. Try as he might he could not ask in the right way and his escape was made only through the explosive strength that desperation put in him.

  They slid across the floor in opposite directions. Chlu fell against the steps, winded and dazed, but he was up first. He drew something from the back of his belt and held it before him like a dagger in the shaft of light.

  Will struggled on heels and elbows. He was gasping for breath and half-blind in a haze of dust and dry bird-lime, but he had seen the deadly spike clearly enough – it was Chlu’s unused crossbow bolt.

  He put out a hand behind him and found – clear space – no rails, no banister, nothing but a thin current of foul air falling from above into which his fingers grasped emptily. He froze, suddenly knowing his peril, for he saw that he was lying on the edge of the precipice. It would take barely a touch to send him over. If Chlu were only to toe-poke him he would go spinning down into the dark, and that would be the end. A powerful fear surged up inside him. How quickly the tables had turned, and how faulty had been the inner feelings that Gwydion had so often recommended. Where Chlu was concerned, it seemed, such warnings were no help.

  Terror filled his mind as Chlu came forward and rose over him menacingly. The weird light from above enfolded them. Will gasped.

  ‘Llyw, no!’

  The Dark Child froze. He flinched back as echoes died on the air like a faint detonation – the noise of the chain hitting the bottom far below. It was followed by distant voices calling out in confusion. Will’s dust-filled eyes stung, but he could see that Chlu had begun to back away from the stairwell. A groan escaped him, and then he turned and fled.

  Will rolled away from the edge. He coughed, tried to wave away the dust, got to his feet and sought the safety of the wall. He found that he was shaking as he drank in the relief that flooded through him. What had driven Chlu off? The effect had been almost magical, as if some bogeyman of the Fellowship had appeared and frightened him away.

  But there was nothing to be seen. The Vigilants were far below, and there was no monster here, nothing save dust and the shafts of light cutting the scene at crazy angles. And then he realized what it must have been – he had pronounced Chlu’s name in the old tongue of the west. The name had worked the trick, for had not Gwydion warned him never to speak Chlu’s true name? If he ever did so as part of a spell, then his own doom would be sealed also.

  He spat and laughed thinly. Blood soaked his sleeve. He was cut and bruised, but no serious damage had been done.

  I have Chlu’s true name, he told himself, thinking out the consequences. And now he knows that, he’ll believe he’s in my power. He’ll think that I’ve already won. How desperate he’ll be – and how dangerous! I mustn’t underestimate him again, and I mustn’t forget that he’s a match for me in head and hand, however much our hearts may differ.

  He gathered himself ready to press on up the stair, then saw there was blood in the dust. Big drops, red as rubies. He smeared fingers across his own wounded cheek. But, no – this blood was not his own.

  And there were new sounds now – scuffling sounds – this time from above. Then a muffled screeching set Will’s teeth on edge. What was Chlu doing? Moving something heavy to the edge, ready to pitch it down the stair?

  No…

  When he rounded the next corner a flood of daylight came from above. This was no tiny brown-glazed pore opening on the outside world, no mean-spirited lancet pierced through the fabric of the building. This was direct light – full sunshine. The h
airs were lifting on Will’s neck. He screwed up his eyes and half turned away from the gust of warm, filthy air that assailed his senses as the landing opened onto a scene of horror.

  Here were a dozen hunchbacked figures, part-man, part-bird, creatures that might have been made long ago by vile sorcery out of some vain desire to fly. The beasts stood no taller than children. They wore coats of quills, and their heads were wrinkled and pink. So cruel and quarrelsome were their manners that they took Will’s breath away. They danced excitedly, snapping at one another and ripping at the open ribcage of a corpse that lay between them. The creatures were fighting over what was inside. Mottled brown wings opened and flapped as they strove to drive one another away from the carrion. But despite their preoccupation with the ghastly feast they nevertheless took notice of Will as he mounted the final stair.

  They did not bear the interruption well, hissing and spitting at him, their pink-and-grey snouts sneering up to reveal long yellow eye-teeth. Will stared, horrified by the scene. If this was the Bier of Eternity, Will knew, then these must be the bone demons who came here to strip the bodies of flesh. The mortal remains of some high officer of the Fellowship had been stretched out upon a grey granite funerary bed and elaborately chained there. The Bier was low, its edge no higher than Will’s knee. It was carved with token-words and with locks and skulls and other symbols of death, and Will saw that the decayed corpse had been presented like an offering upon a grim altar. Over it all a pale canopy was spread, splashed now with the liquor of death and tattered by violence.

  As Will’s eyes took in the scene, the creatures began to make menacing advances. They bounded towards him, testing him by darting in and out. Then, as if at a signal, they rushed him all at once, leaping forward in a flurry of clawing and ripping.

  Will threw them off, then took up the only weapon that lay to hand – a thigh bone. He slashed back and forth, seeing that he must drive them back, that an all-out attack was his only hope.

  He realized with horror that the weapon he had snatched up was slimy with rotting meat, but this was no time to scruple. He struck the nearest creature on the head as if with a mace, and it fell down. But the second tore at him furiously until he grabbed its tail and whirled it away out into empty space. By then, a third had used its hind claws to slash the sleeve of his jerkin open. He knocked it against a pillar, but now a fourth fastened its jaws on his calf and a fifth took him painfully by the forearm. Before he could shake them off others came to menace him, crowding upon his head like so many hornets. He threw down the bone, put everything out of his mind and, among the scatter of brown ribs, danced out two steps of a spell of magic.

  This time the power ran through him strongly. When it blasted forth it flung the creatures off in a burst of pale green light and sent them tumbling. Those that were tangled in the canopy tore it down in their panic. The rest gathered themselves in rage and fear and scuttled back towards the open air. When Will approached them closer, the least fierce of them threw itself into panicked flight and the others soon followed.

  The whole pack screamed at him impotently as he stepped over the Bier of Eternity. The stinking, part-dismanded body entangled his ankles and the rusty chains with which it had been ceremonially shackled threatened to trip him. Disgust overcame him, but as he tore down the rest of the canopy, he wiped his hands, then moved out into the light, where the yellow rays of the afternoon sun seemed to wash him clean.

  Out on the parapet there was some respite from the stench, but he dared not step any closer to the edge than this – the fall was unfenced and the bone demons swooped and wheeled in the air beyond. They were looking for their chance to return, hesitating only when Will came fully out into the open to throw a magical gesture of satiety at them.

  ‘Go on, you bloody-snouted curs! You’ll feast no more today! Away with you!’

  Then his eyes widened. How high he had come! All of Trinovant was laid out for him, its sprawl of roofs, its rich palaces and prickle of lesser spires all encompassed by that many-gated wall. There, the White Tower, and yonder, the bridge, tiny now, with the great shining river Iesis also made small, a twisting, turning ribbon of light…

  But where was Chlu?

  When Will looked up he saw there was still a great deal more of the Spire rising above his head. Its summit cone went up dizzyingly for a dozen more levels and came to a point that was topped by a large iron vane. This carried the device of the bloodless heart, the letters A, E, E and F standing out starkly, and a great gold-headed, gold-fletched arrow that acted as a pointer. Will knew the letters stood for a phrase in the language of the Slavers that meant ‘to and from the Fellowship’. Unlike ordinary weather vanes, this pointer was not pushed around by the wind. It was swung by some ingenious means so as to send out messages.

  Seeing the moving sky made Will feel as if the Spire were toppling. A sudden fear of the immense height gripped his belly again and made him step away from the edge. As he did so, he saw Chlu. The latter was standing astride the Bier, and it appeared that he was ready to parlay.

  ‘Why have you stopped running?’ Will asked.

  Chlu stared back. ‘I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me.’

  Will faced him warily. ‘What did Maskull tell you? What spells did he place upon your head to make you want to hurt me?’

  Chlu’s face was as bloodied as Will’s own, laid open beneath his right eye where Will had kicked him, but there remained an ember of arrogance in his expression, a hidden glow that would easily re-kindle.

  ‘I’m not bound to Maskull,’ Chlu said. ‘My will is as free as your own. It always has been.’

  ‘You don’t even realize how he’s using you!’

  A humourless half-smile passed over Chlu’s face, and he prepared to take a step forward. ‘Oh, I am the sorcerer’s stooge while you’re the wizard’s favoured accomplice. I am the blind man, but your hawk eyes see forever. Is that the way it is? I’ll tell you plain, Willand: Maskull uses me no more than the enchanter, Gwydion Crowmaster, uses you!’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Will raised a hand to stay Chlu’s sly approach. ‘Maskull said he made me, and that he could just as easily unmake me. For years I thought that meant he must be my father. Master Gwydion told me not to believe it, but I couldn’t help myself. And now I’ve learned the truth, and so must you – we were twins, Chlu, two babies stolen away from our natural parents. By Maskull.’

  Chlu shook his head, spread his hands in an open gesture that nevertheless showed he did not accept Will’s words. ‘So you were told, and so you believe…’

  ‘Hear me, Chlu! Maskull worked a spell upon us in a secret workshop. Neither of us are natural men. He’s altered us. He didn’t make us, but his tampering caused us to be as we are. Now don’t you see why we must work together?’

  Chlu’s eyes were slitted against the glare. He threw up a hand against the golden light that haloed Will’s head. The shape of his fingers echoed Will’s own half-formed magical gesture, but there was a wounded quality about him that seemed too much like self-pity. He began slowly shaking his head. ‘Why should I believe a word you say?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth.’

  ‘Truth?’ Chlu spat out the word. ‘What? That you are the Deliverer, and I the Destroyer? Why should I choose to believe a truth like that, when it so clearly does not serve me?’

  ‘The truth is not there to serve you, Chlu. It simply is.’

  Chlu rapped out his words mockingly. ‘Truth! You can put that name to anything you please!’

  ‘No! No, you can’t! Do you think you can just choose to believe whatever pleases you? You can’t do that! You have a duty to respect what is. It’s the nature of our world!’

  ‘I would rather believe what Lord Maskull tells me. He has shown me wonders. And he’s promised that as soon as I’ve rid our world of you I shall have my desire.’

  Will stared, incredulous. ‘Your…desire?’

  Chlu’s gaze was unfaltering. ‘I am to join Lo
rd Maskull in the future that he’s going to make. He’ll be the king and I the prince, and we’ll rule a whole world between us!’

  ‘Do you really believe that? Chlu, he’ll use you for his present purpose and afterwards discard you without a second thought.’

  ‘Oh, no, little brother. A new world is coming.’

  ‘But it’s not coming, is it? Because I’m here to prevent it.’

  ‘You have it in a nutshell.’ Chlu’s eyes became murderous and hard. ‘And that’s why you have to die!’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Again Will’s hands rose up in a spellmaker’s gesture and kept Chlu from taking another dangerous step forward. ‘You should know that Maskull was labouring at the very limit of his art when he made us. Something went wrong. Master Gwydion saw it all: a great, spinning ray, then a burst of violence that tore a tower to pieces. And that blast tasted of fae magic, a magic from the olden times that was once mighty but now is all lost, except in the stones of the lorc – and in you and me.’

  ‘Gwydion is a deceiver. He lies to you.’

  ‘Why should he lie? Whatever separates us, Chlu, comes of the same power that fills the battlestones. Maskull tampered with that power so he could alter us. Can’t you feel it? The power that runs in the lorc – it’s the same magic that was used to change us. It binds our destinies to the stones, and to one another.’

  ‘Very neat. Only Lord Maskull tells quite a different story.’

  Will let his hand fall. ‘Of course he does.’

  ‘You were chosen by the deceiver as his favourite. It was Gwydion Crowmaster who stole us away and then hid us in two ready-prepared places. They were shrouded in magic, kept secret so that no one else could find us. And there, as the years went by, that meddler worked his spells upon our minds. He grew us like barnyard animals, all the while twisting us to his scheme. And when he found which child was the most compliant to his magic, that was the one he chose to further at the expense of the other.’