Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  Chlu’s voice rose and he jumped from the Bier. ‘Oh, but it was. While I was sent to tend pigs among filthy villagers, you were taken to be schooled alongside the sons of a duke! But Lord Maskull found me and pulled me from my torment! He took me out of the prison village of Little Slaughter, withdrew me before the evil enchanter could shatter it and murder me! Lord Maskull rescued me! He set me free!’

  Will was aware that the bone demons had gathered once more, and were spitting and cackling. ‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. It was Maskull who broke Little Slaughter. Maskull found you, Chlu, on that we agree, but he removed you from Little Slaughter not to help you or to set you free. He doesn’t want to share overlordship of the future with anyone. He’s using you as his instrument. He needs to have you as his lodestone to seek me out. That’s been his purpose all along.’

  ‘That’s a view that puts you at the centre of all things, and makes me the villain!’ Again that bitter, unbelieving laugh. ‘Lord Maskull wants to find you all right. He wants more than that. He’s sent me to kill you. And so I shall.’

  Chlu threw wide his hands and the bone demons flocked as if at his command. A purplish-red glow like an angry wound pulsed from him. ‘You see how I make them obey me?’

  The creatures jostled forward, encircling Will, pulled by Chlu’s hatred, pushed by their own fear. They dared not close on the green-blue aura that rippled around Will’s form. But then Chlu bent down, scooped up the dripping skull of the dead Elder and flung it with all his strength. As Will blocked it filth, stinking and foul, blinded him, and he spat the vileness from his lips. Then, without warning, his aura exploded in all directions, filling the world with an immensely bright green light.

  All Will could hear were the shrieks of the bone demons as they took to the air, and then came the rattling of chains. When Will regained his sight he saw that Chlu had vanished once more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE VANE

  There was no doubt where Chlu had gone. A chain dangled from a hole in the vaulting. It hung over the Bier, and was swinging. Chlu must have hauled himself up through the hole, and Will knew that he must follow.

  But as he pulled himself up on the chain he felt Chlu’s struggles cease and knew that his twin had found a ledge higher up. Once through the hole, Will saw that the space that formed the tip of the Spire was hollow. The sharp cone rose up a dozen times the height of a man, its interior lit by four great vents.

  The light was dim and diffuse – dust had been kicked into the air, but Will saw that six huge chains depended from a platform at the top. The structure was trussed internally with huge beams and straps of iron that held the stonework together. Chlu had swung up into these rafters and had begun to climb along them and up a series of ladders.

  ‘Come on, little brother!’ Chlu howled. ‘Catch me if you can!’

  Will heard the undertones of his own spirit in the challenge, and, undaunted, he climbed onward. But the way was treacherous. Always go first through a thicket, but second through a mire – that was something Wortmaster Gort used to say while out on his long walks. Going second here definitely put the follower at a disadvantage.

  The ladders were crumbling – many rungs were wormy. They cracked under Will’s feet. Even the lashings that held them to the beams were dry and brittle. No stonemason or carpenter had come into the summit in many a long year, so that nothing had been done by way of repair or renewal. Now that Chlu had climbed some distance ahead he began to unrope the ladder tops and kick them away. He laughed as he tore up whatever was at hand to throw down, but he could not halt Will’s progress up into what, for one of them, would be a dead end.

  Will fended off the missiles and pressed on doggedly, coming at last to a place about two ladder-lengths below the top platform. Here his daring faced a sterner test. The walkway had been almost wholly smashed by Chlu. In the middle all that remained was a single balk of timber. Will knew that one false step would mean falling to his death. He stopped and raised his arms to Chlu in a last appeal to see sense, but his twin’s reply was to fling at him the iron he had been using to tear up the planks.

  Will took a step forward, but was immediately thrown off balance, and when he put out a hand he found one of the giant chains. Each link was as long as a man was tall and all six chains came out of a line of holes pierced in the upper platform. They disappeared far below, somewhere near the Bier, but what their purpose was, Will could not see.

  He hugged the nearest link to save himself. It shivered as it came under tension and began to move downwards. Having grasped it, Will dared not let go, and so he was pulled to his knees then dragged down off the beam. For a moment he swung out wide over the drop, all his weight held on one twisted forearm. His legs dangled and his guts filled with a paralysing terror that snatched away all power over his body.

  Don’t look down, he told himself in a silent scream. Keep your head up and hang on!

  Distant grinding noises rose up from the space below when the chains jerked into motion. Will felt terror engulf him. His breath came in short gasps. The imperative to keep his grip consumed him as the pain in his wrist peaked. The struggle locked his muscles in a death-like cramp. He cried out, thrashed, managed to turn himself, then captured the link gratefully between his thighs. He squeezed his chest against the link and knew that he had bought enough time until the pain subsided and he could regain his courage. It had not been elegant, but he had avoided the fall.

  Of course! he thought as he clung on. It’s the vane! These chains are how they work the mechanism. They must be sending out a message.

  He forced himself to recall what was up above. On the very top of the Spire the great vane would be swinging and dancing this way and that, its various parts clacking and clanging as it sent the news of an unthinkable defilement to every chapter house in Trinovant.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Chlu shouted in delight. ‘Are you finding it hard to get close to me?’

  Will hung on, both in body and mind. He was shaking with shock, but the pain was ebbing and it was clear from the fingers he could still flex that his wrist had not been broken. Cramp complained in every muscle, sweat streamed down his back. It was hot up here, and he realized how much closer he must have come to the sun by now, way up in the middle airs of the sky, where Gwydion said the air lost its virtue and a man’s breathing came hard.

  He calmed himself, then he began to think out his best chance. He could fit his foot into the eye at the end of the link and so let one of his legs bear his weight. The chains were within reach of one another and as one stopped moving down another began moving up. So he jammed his other foot into a link on the next chain, which fortunately soon jolted into motion. When that chain stopped, he moved on to a third, which disappointed him by going down again. But still it was clear how he might be carried up and up by making correct guesses. With luck he might get as far as the platform with its six holes.

  He clambered from chain to chain, feeling for advantage, but as his mind opened he felt Chlu’s malice interfering with his judgment, willing him to fall. He overshot and saw with horror that just one more upward movement of the chain would carry him up through one of the holes. He would be stripped off the chain like a beetle from a corn stalk.

  Fortunately, the next movement took him lower, but his relief lasted only a moment because now he came level with Chlu.

  Having kicked away the ladder and guard rail to fling down on Will’s head, Chlu had trapped himself on a narrow ledge. Had they chosen to touch hands they could have done so, but Will’s twin crouched against the wall in that hot, dark space. He snarled, repelled by a consuming hatred, and struggled with something that protruded from the wall.

  Will could see no way down, but then Chlu’s hunched shoulder moved, a catch gave way and a bar of brightness pierced the gloom as Chlu threw open a heavy wooden shutter and let in a flood of sunlight. Will saw with amazement that the builders of the Spire ha
d seen fit to place a hatch here.

  The grumbling sounds that issued from the chain holes were now complemented by the squeaking and squealing of iron joints. For a moment, Chlu’s body blocked the light, but then he climbed through the hole and once more Will was left alone.

  The square of blue sky beckoned urgently. He leapt towards it and his fingers scrabbled for purchase, but he managed to get one hand on the sill and launch the other at Chlu’s ankle. The latter kicked him off, and when Will looked out he saw above him the final ladder – a series of iron staples, maybe a couple of dozen in all – leading to the uttermost tip of the Spire.

  Chlu was already halfway up that deadly route by the time Will emerged and started after him. The rake of the Spire’s summit cap was severe. The ascent, which was almost vertical, became an overhang as the stone bellied out just below the vane. Brilliant sunshine burned the outline of Will’s shadow onto the weathered sandstone as he forced feet and hands to follow one another. Despite the danger he felt vastly alive. The sun’s heat burned his back, and had filled the rusty iron rungs with heat. The air up here was clean, sweet and he could taste blood in his mouth. It was as if the danger itself had sharpened all his senses, made him aware of every detail…

  He looked to himself suspiciously, testing for evidence of magical attack. Was Maskull watching from somewhere? Was that the plan? Had the sorcerer been waiting all along on some rooftop down below, ready to cast a burst of violet fire skyward and sear both his troublesome creations into flaming brands?

  Will blocked out the thought and put all of himself into the climb. He also tried to put out of his mind what he had glimpsed from the corner of his eye, but that was more difficult. It seemed as though the wide world below curved away from the Spire in every direction, the drab roofs of the City and then a green land, losing itself in a bright haze of blue which was neither earth nor sky. And against that background he had seen a speckling of dark shapes – bone demons, gathering again.

  Will’s certainties told him that a reckoning was at hand. He tried to pull the shreds of his spirit together and scramble faster up the iron staples. The thinking part of him stood aghast at the course he had taken. Why had he done this? He was no murderer. What did he hope to gain by chasing Chlu to this lonely, lofty place? Now he had arrived his actions seemed bizarre and inexplicable. No one could climb such an overhang with a foe like Chlu guarding its top. Only a fool would throw himself at death without surer knowledge that his leaving the world would make a crucial difference.

  Even so, there had been no mistaking his inner promptings, the ones he had promised Gwydion he would always try to take account of. The desire was unquestionable: Find him! Get to him! You must!

  But what had driven Will on had not been determination, nor any righteous plan. It was not fear or hope of gain that made Chlu attack him. It was a force as elemental as day and night.

  Soon, he thought grimly, one or both of us is going to have to die. I feel that, and he feels it too.

  A raucous croak awoke Will’s fears. Black wings fluttered, dappling the brightness with shadows. He gritted his teeth then he looked up to see that it was Chlu who had attracted the wrath of the creatures. He had hauled himself up the double rows of ornamental carvings that lay just below the vane, and there he was being swooped upon by black shapes that wheeled and dived at him. But they were not bone demons.

  Ravens! he told himself with sudden relief. They’re Bran’s ravens, come from the White Tower!

  He took his chance. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up through the overhang, jamming his toes behind the rungs until he had hauled his upper body round to where the capstones were sheathed in lead.

  Chlu was struggling on the leaden base of the vane, fighting off the birds that mobbed him. Above, the mechanism’s ribs were grinding and squealing as they turned, a heavy iron pointer wheeling this way and that. Seen this close, the letters were huge, each taller than a man, and the ribs on which they were mounted swept shudderingly around a huge white heart – a heart bled dry of all desire. Like the letters, the fearsome token was no more than a peeling sheet of thin, white-painted copper thrown into motion by levers and sprocket wheels turning below. The haphazardly rotating ribs threatened to cut Will off at the ankles, while the heart turned crazy somersaults in its cradle as it spelled out its arcane message.

  Without another word, Will leapt at Chlu and seized him. The ravens scattered as he slammed Chlu up against a stanchion. He tried to hold him there, but Chlu’s fists beat him back with hammer blows. Will threw off the onslaught, knowing he must not use magic to overcome his twin. They traded punch for punch, kick for kick, dodging the flailing vane, somehow avoiding the randomly moving ironwork, and little by little Will forced Chlu back. At last he was pushed out onto the rib that supported the letter E.

  Will told him, ‘There’s nowhere left for you to go.’

  ‘Nowhere’ Chlu gasped, ‘but Hell!’

  Arms outstretched for balance, Chlu turned and teetered along the rib in an insanely risky dance. He reached the safety of the giant letter before the support could move and throw him off. There he turned again – not at bay, but triumphantly. He banged the copper sheeting that made up the letter with the flat of his hand, sending out a sound that rolled like thunder.

  ‘So what’s it to be? Do you have the guts to come for me? Or shall we sit here looking at one another until the Fellows come for you?’

  Will shook his head and shot out an accusing finger. ‘You think you can find a way to live forever? You can’t!’

  ‘It’s the end of this Age. Your old world is finished! Only Lord Maskull has seen what’s coming next. He’s shown me there is a way!’

  Will spoke the words that Gwydion had first taught him long ago.

  ‘First there were nine,

  Then nine became seven,

  And seven became five.

  Now, as sure as the Ages decline,

  Three are no more,

  But one is alive.’

  Chlu showed his teeth. ‘You see? All was prophesied! The one is Lord Maskull!’

  ‘But what if it’s not like that? What if Master Gwydion is the last phantarch? What then, Chlu?’

  Chlu laughed. ‘You’re an ignorant fool, little brother. Your mind is too busy with small things to understand the greatness of the change that’s now upon us. Lord Maskull does not claim to be a phantarch. He never wanted to be that.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘It’s as I told you. You know nothing of the wonders that were shown to me! This is not just the ending of another Age, not just the passing over of one phantarch for another. This is the end of the world!’

  ‘The end of the world? What do you mean?’

  ‘Magic has always been draining away, right from the beginning of the world, and now it’s almost gone. This is the end-time, and when the last Age closes our world will become subject to a new power. Another world is coming for us, little brother, and it’s going to swallow us up!’

  The ravens cawed and circled, but kept their distance. Down below, the whole beautiful world seemed to have been laid out beneath them. Will held on to the ornamental iron that supported the rib. He was jolted as it revolved, stopped, then revolved again, but nothing could tear his gaze from Chlu’s own. It did not matter what nonsense Chlu talked. It was the strangest of fascinations just to look at him.

  Will let Chlu’s words wash over him, barely aware when they broke off. He knew he had no choice but to go out along the rib and see his labour through to the end. He let his eyes fall, tried to judge the best moment to start out along the rib, but its shifts were capricious. They lacked all pattern, so the direction it would next move in was impossible to foresee, and even if he did choose correctly and even if he did reach the end, Chlu would just be able to push him off.

  He watched the golden-headed arrow of the pointer as it swept under the ribs, then he put a hand to his left cheek. When he opened it there was blood in his palm: the
cut was bleeding again. Chlu’s right cheek was cut in exactly the same place. Out on the rib, Chlu’s every move mirrored his own. When Will wiped his hand clean against his breast, Chlu did the same. They both looked up and then away, and in that moment Will saw the hideous connection operating.

  A confusion of fear and pain reached up to enmesh his thoughts. There was only one way forward. He must clear his mind of all clouding images. His inner promptings had brought him here, they must be allowed to guide him now. He closed his eyes until his mind became ice clear, then he jumped from the rib and ran forward into empty air.

  As he reached the edge, the arm of the pointer swung neatly under his foot. One step – two, three – each footfall landed miraculously square on the iron strut. The fourth step brought him crashing hard up against the side of the giant white letter E and there he hung as the pointer swung away again.

  The impact shivered the sheet of copper and clattered Chlu hard. Only a knee hooked around the lowest horizontal of the letter saved Chlu from falling, but the copper was flimsy and the rivets corroded, and it began to come away from its support. The next time the rib kicked into motion, the letter tore like dry parchment. Chlu pitched suddenly forward. Will, clinging like an insect to the top of the letter, reached a hand down and grabbed Chlu by the shoulder. But in reaching out, he too lost his balance and they were flung from the vane in opposite directions.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘KILL! KILL!’

  They fell at hurtling speed, but the copper sheet worked briefly like the wing of a bird. The air rushed against it and pushed them clear of the Spire. Then they tumbled and the world began to spin faster and faster. The metal’s edge was caught by a billow of air and ripped from Will’s grasp. He tried to call out, but the gale that tore his jerkin open also forced its way into his mouth and nose and stopped his breath.