Shadowmancer

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘Then we’ll have to get you to Whitby. We can be there by tonight and have you on a boat first thing in the morning,’ said Thomas. ‘Let’s hurry; Demurral won’t even think we’d use the house to get to the tunnels. From there we can get to the beach and at low tide we can walk to Baytown.’

  To himself, he thought that this was easier said than done. Twenty Dragoons sat in the barn between the yew tree and the back door of the Vicarage. Inside, Captain Farrell and Demurral would be in one of the rooms that led off the long passageway that led past the kitchen and then down to the cellar and into the tunnel. Beadle could not be trusted. With one shout he could alert the Dragoons or if he waited until they were in the house, he could call for Demurral and then there would be no escape.

  Thomas took the sword from Kate and prodded Beadle.

  ‘One word out of you and I’ll have to run you through with this – do you understand?’ He tried to sound as menacing as he could. ‘I’ll do it, Beadle: my life depends on it.’

  Beadle looked at the three of them. They were dirty and tired. It was obvious that Raphah was feeling the pain of the brand to his back and the blow to his head. Something inside made Beadle feel responsible. He knew he was to blame in part for the hurt caused to the lad. It was not a feeling that he liked. It disturbed him. He looked at Raphah, and remembered what he had said just before they left the tower.

  ‘How can you forgive me when I hurt you so badly?’ Beadle asked.

  ‘It is what Riathamus commands,’ Raphah replied.

  ‘But I don’t know you or like you. I would have been prepared to hurt you even more, so how can you say that you forgive me for that?’ He kept his whining voice as low as he could, the wart twitching nervously on the end of his nose.

  ‘If I didn’t forgive you, then I would not be true to myself. Bitterness eats away on the inside. I could easily hate you for ever for what you have done to me, and what you would have done, but what good would that do? It would make me as wicked as you and your master. You have held Demurral’s coat for too long while he went the way of evil. You have done nothing to stop him and in your complicity you’ve got blood on your hands.’

  The words stung Beadle like a willow whip across the back of the legs. He had no reply and no clever words.

  ‘So what’s it to be then?’ Thomas asked Beadle. ‘If you speak out you’ll get the blade in the back, then I’ll cut that wart off your nose and mount it in a brooch.’

  ‘I give you my word, for what you may think it’s worth, that I will keep silent,’ Beadle replied.

  ‘We can’t trust him, let’s tie him to the tree and leave him here and go our own way,’ Kate whispered.

  ‘Something makes me want to take him with me. If we get found in the house we can always trade his life for ours,’ Raphah said.

  ‘I’ll show you the way to the tunnel. I promise to give you an hour’s start before I tell Demurral. It’ll take me that long to walk from the cliff, you can be sure of that,’ Beadle interrupted just as Thomas was about to speak.

  ‘On that we have your word?’ Raphah asked. ‘Then we take you with us. Show us the way. If you betray us then you will answer to Riathamus.’

  ‘You’ll also answer to this blade,’ Thomas whispered quietly into Beadle’s ear. ‘I may be a lad, but in the last two nights I have learnt to be a man. He may have forgiven you, Beadle, but my wrists still burn from the ropes you tied them with.’

  Together they set off from the cover of the yew tree and the thick bushes that surrounded it and walked across the gravelled yard to the back door of the Vicarage. There was no sign of the Dragoons, other than their horses, at rest in the barn. Beadle walked slightly ahead, still carrying the wooden snake box. Thomas walked behind him, the sword up his right sleeve ready to slide it forward as quickly as he could at the first sign of trouble.

  Beadle took them into the house. Walking as quietly as they could they were soon in the passageway that led to the kitchen, the cellar and finally the tunnel. There was no sign of Demurral; the house was deathly quiet. Cook was not swearing in the kitchen. There were no sounds of her throwing the pans into the sink. The house had an eerie sense of emptiness.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ Beadle muttered quietly. ‘They’ll have gone to see the cliff fall at Baytown. They’ll be at the front of the house.’

  It was a deep comfort to know that nothing would hinder their escape. The falling of the cliff had meant that the mine had been cleared of people and horses. Everyone stood on the cliff top watching the mudslide across the bay and the increasing brightness of the expanding red cloud.

  The long passageway smelt nastily of cold meat and rotten fish. It was dark and dismal with no real source of light. Every few yards were small candles, placed on wooden holders set into the peeling walls, that flickered as each of them passed by. They cast long shadows against the sodden walls. At the end of the passageway the light of the window brought the red glow of the cloud into the house. It reflected from the large golden mirror set on the wall and glimmered on the gold leaf of the raven’s wings. Beadle stopped and gave a sign for them to be very quiet.

  Fearful of being discovered, they walked as quietly as they could as they left the passageway and out into the light of the hall. The door to Demurral’s study was closed; the staircase that led to the upper floor was empty. The large statue of the golden raven that kept guard above the front door looked down into the hallway. They began the long walk from the front door along the hall that led to the kitchen and eventually down into the cellar. There was a low rumble as yet another tremor shook the house. Their pace quickened, keeping time with their pounding hearts. The excitement made their mouths go dry and their legs feel weak. Each of them fought against the uncontrollable urge to scream and run.

  Raphah turned and saw the look on Thomas’s face. It spoke of a growing fear. He looked at Kate who was biting her lip, her brow furrowed with anxiety.

  It was then that they heard the thud coming from near the front door. Beadle was the first to turn. A look of utter horror swept across his face. The golden raven had crashed to the floor and was now picking itself up and shaking its feathers. It was alive. Its golden eyes stared out of its golden head and looked directly at them, as its great gold beak pecked at the air. It shook its golden feathers, took two giant steps towards them and began to spread its wings.

  Without a word they all began to run, Beadle struggling with his withered leg. Soon he was a distance behind them, the large golden raven bearing down upon him as if he were a fresh rabbit in the field waiting to be snapped up and torn to shreds by its powerful golden beak.

  ‘Keep running, I’ll try to stop it,’ Beadle shouted. He threw the box of snakes at the raven. The three vipers slithered out on the wooden floor only to be ripped apart by the giant bird. Beadle tried to run faster along the hallway. As he did so he opened every door that he passed on each side to hold the raven up.

  They could hear the bang-bang-bang as the huge creature smashed each door, knocking them out of the way. Thomas stopped and turned to look back. He saw Beadle hobbling as fast as he could with the large fumbling bird getting closer and closer. Sword in hand he began to run back to Beadle.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, lad, save yourself,’ Beadle shouted frantically. With that he dived through the open kitchen door and slammed it firmly shut. The raven jumped at the door slashing at it with its metal talons, which rasped at the wood, sending splinters across the hallway. Thomas could hear Beadle piling chairs against the door to protect him from the onslaught. ‘Keep running – go to the cellar,’ came the muffled voice of Beadle, only just audible above the crashing of furniture and the shredding of wood.

  Thomas couldn’t leave. He knew that within a matter of seconds the giant bird would be through the door and tearing Beadle to bits.

  ‘Come and get me, you fat chicken,’ Thomas shouted at the bird and waved the Varrigal sword above his head.

  The raven stopped clawing at the
door and turned and looked at him. It stood six feet high and almost filled the width of the passageway, its long metal claws digging into the wooden floorboards as it made ready to pounce at him.

  He began to panic. Raphah and Kate had run to the cellar. He was on his own. It was then that he heard a voice speaking into his heart.

  ‘I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.’ It was the voice of the King.

  The raven charged at Thomas who was taken by surprise at its speed. He stumbled back unsure of what to do or how to fight against such a creature. He lashed out with the sword, hitting the metal feathers of the bird but with no effect. The bird grabbed him by the front of his jacket, picked him up with its beak and began to toss him from side to side smashing him against the walls of the passageway. Thomas dropped the sword as his head hit the corner of a door. The raven threw him to the floor with a thud, stepped forward and placed an enormous talon on his body, bending its head lower to begin ripping at his flesh with its sharp beak.

  Barely conscious, Thomas heard the chant of the Seruvim.

  ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Hosts.

  Heaven and earth are full of your Glory.’

  A vivid bright light that seemed to penetrate his flesh surrounded him; he opened his eyes. He was at the bottom of a long stone stairway encircled by Seruvim. At the top of the stairway the King looked down at him.

  ‘Do you want to fight on, Thomas, or come home to me?’ It was a soft, warm voice that filled Thomas with peace. ‘The choice is up to you. I stood at the door of your life and you heard me call; now you can come and eat with me.’

  Thomas felt an overwhelming compulsion to leave the world behind and to go to the King. He looked back and saw his life frozen in time. He could see the entire Vicarage as if all the walls had been removed, and the contents of the rooms and the people left completely still, as if time had stopped, like a doll’s house in some child’s game. The raven was poised to strike above his body in the darkened hallway. Beadle was at the door of the kitchen. Raphah and Kate were halfway down the flight of stairs into the cellar. Demurral and Captain Farrell and two Dragoons were in the tunnel, about to step back into the cellar. They had been inside when the tremor had struck and had hidden in the tunnel.

  From his place at the gate of heaven Thomas could see that Kate and Raphah were about to be caught by Demurral. The raven would kill him, then go after them. They would have nowhere to run but into the arms of the waiting Demurral, the Captain and his men.

  ‘Let me return and fight; I must warn them. If I do not go back then the task will not be completed. Please, my King, let me return,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Very well, go, but act quickly. You will have to strike before the raven. At its heart there is a force of evil, which has given the creature life. Strike to the heart with a pure blow in my name.’

  With that, the bright light, the Seruvim and the stairway vanished. The damp smell of the hallway quickly filled Thomas’s nostrils. He snatched up the Varrigal sword, which had fallen to the floor. The raven jumped into the air, talons outstretched, ready to fall and rip into his chest. Thomas opened his eyes and screamed as loud as he could.

  ‘In the Name of the King … be gone!’

  He thrust the sword into the breast of the creature as its talons crunched into the flesh of his shoulders. The sword broke through the metal, stabbing into the heart of the large bird. It let out a long, loud, shrill caw as it slackened its grip and fell to one side of the hallway. The metal began to dissolve and bubble before his eyes, burning the wooden floor and steaming against the damp of the walls.

  Thomas saw the creature change from a bird into a man. He had a large hooked nose, dazzling white face and bright red hair. He was dressed in a leather tunic, breeches and boots. As he fell to one side Thomas saw that his teeth were made of solid gold. From his breast oozed a deep blue essence that pumped from his chest with each beat of his failing heart. In his final moments of life he looked at Thomas with piercing cat-like eyes. It was a defiant stare filled with hatred as the last beat of his heart took him from this world.

  ‘Thomas!’ screamed Raphah. ‘What have you done?’ Raphah stopped and looked at the dead body on the floor. ‘He is a Glashan. That was the creature. The Great Captivity is over. If they are here then Pyratheon will not be far away.’

  With that the door to the kitchen flew open. Beadle scrambled over chairs, pots and pans, brushes and a whole pile of implements that he had stacked against the door.

  ‘You’ve killed it – saved my life,’ he sobbed.

  ‘Demurral and Farrell are in the cellar with two men,’ Thomas said. He turned to Beadle. ‘Is there another way into the tunnel?’

  Beadle gestured for them to follow him into the kitchen. They crossed the flagstone floor to the pantry at the far side of the room. Beadle pulled on the cooling stone set into the wall. A door the size of a small man slid open in the wall. Beyond were three stone steps that fell into darkness. From a shelf Beadle took a lamp and, with a tinderbox, lit the wick, turning the lamp up as bright as he could.

  ‘This way will take you to Beastcliff. Beware of that place, there are creatures there that Demurral has in his control. Get to the beach as fast as you can.’ He looked at Raphah who was clutching the golden Keruvim. ‘Leave this land and take that thing with you; it has no place here.’

  ‘Come with us, Beadle – you can come too,’ Kate said as she tugged at his sleeve.

  ‘No. I’ll stay here and answer to Demurral. I will have to close the secret door from this side so I can’t come with you. Now go: he will be here soon.’

  Thomas clutched the sword and the lantern and led the others into the darkness. Beadle pushed the cooling stone and the door slammed shut. He brushed away the fallen pieces of plaster and, ignoring the feet of the Glashan in the doorway, began to tidy the kitchen. Hearing footsteps from the hallway he braced himself for what would happen next.

  Pyratheon

  FOR a long moment there was complete silence, except for the drip-drip-drip from the roof of the tunnel. The light from the lamp lit up the damp stone walls and the stone slabs that made up the slanted floor.

  The tunnel smelt of the sea, rock pools and dead fish mixed with the dampness of fresh mud. It resounded with each footstep and was as cold as death. Thomas held tightly to the lamp and the sword. He did not want to be taken by surprise. Kate walked between him and Raphah, who placed a warm hand on her shoulder as he followed, looking back every now and then into the blackness.

  ‘No one speak,’ Thomas whispered as quietly as he could. ‘In a tunnel like this the noise will travel for miles.’ The sentence echoed like the whispers of ghostly children.

  They followed Thomas as he walked down the slope, hoping that he was going in the right direction. He knew that as long as he was walking downhill then they would come to either the cliff or the beach. If they found the cliff they would be safe. If they found the beach at high tide they would be trapped in the cave with no means of escape other than waiting for the sea to subside.

  Thomas knew this well. A few years before, he had been cut off by the tide that flooded the sands and rocks beneath Beastcliff. He had managed to clamber on to a pinnacle of rock that jutted out of the cliff and had clung there for several long hours as wave after wave seemed to reach out for him to drag him into the depths.

  That had been the day he had found the tunnel to the Vicarage, and had found too his first keg of brandy hidden amongst the rocks by the water’s edge. Since that time he had been a regular visitor by day and night. He had rowed from the beach to a boat offshore and back again, then tramped high into the tunnel with caskets of tea, silk and gentleman’s medicine. This was a thick green fluid in dark bottles that smelt of dead cats. His father had said it was made from wormwood and would drive you mad. This, he had been told, was Demurral’s favourite drink.

  In the tunnel the sound of the sea could be heard far below. They stopped and listened. Kate thought she
could hear the scratch of men’s boots on wet stone. She dared not speak but tapped Thomas on the shoulder, and in the half-light pointed to her feet then to the tunnel.

  Thomas nodded. He too had heard the sound of footsteps far off in the dark. He signalled for them to walk as quietly as they could. As he led the way, Thomas looked for anything on the floor of the tunnel that might make a sound. He kept on thinking about the creature he had killed. He felt proud but also frightened. He struggled with the vision he had had of the King; it felt so true, as if he had really stood at the gate of Heaven. It was more than a dream. If the Glashan were real then there would be others that would come after them. He knew that they wanted Raphah and the Keruvim. Thomas mulled this over and wondered if his loyalty to Raphah would overcome his own fear of death.

  The sound of metal clanging against stone then echoing through the tunnel brought them to a complete standstill. They had nowhere to hide. Whatever was making the noise was coming towards them. In the distance they could see the light of a storm lamp reflecting off the wet walls. Thomas quickly trimmed the lantern until it was just a small glow and then covered it with his jacket. They were in complete darkness. The light that came towards them grew brighter and brighter. The creature wheezed and puffed as it walked up the steep incline of the tunnel. Every now and then it would cough and spit, almost retching in the darkness.

  Thomas drew his sword ready to strike, leaning against the wall of the tunnel. He could still feel the marks in the rock where the tunnel had been chiselled from solid stone. The beast shuffled up the stone floor making the sound of several feet stomping against the damp rock.