by G. P. Taylor
Abram led the way up the hill, a long black case in the shape of a cross strapped to his back. Kate clambered behind him trying to keep up with his sure-footed strides. It was as if he flew rather than walked, each step appeared not to touch the ground or leave a trace in the patterns of mud that clustered around each cobbled rock.
Halfway up the lane they saw a man standing in the darkness, the glow of his pipe half lighting his face and showing the cap pulled down to his eyes.
‘A Glashan,’ Abram whispered as they approached. ‘A sentry guarding what is ahead. Keep walking and we’ll see if he follows.’ Abram nodded to the man as they passed by. The man nodded back, pipe in mouth, eyes firmly fixed to the ground.
For Kate and Raphah the last few paces made their lungs fit to burst. At the top of the hill they turned and looked down on the town. It was so peaceful, so beautiful, yet the darkness hid a corruption and an evil that lurked in every street and now followed a little distance behind.
To their right was a short path that led to the front door of the infirmary. By the door a metal brazier lit the way, casting flickering shadows across their path. Behind them the Glashan leant against the wall and watched as they walked to the entrance. The door opened easily and they stepped into the hall. A single candle greeted them with a tallow light. From a room at the side they heard someone approaching.
Out of the darkness stepped a tall, gaunt woman with broken teeth and a thin smile. She stared at them without speaking for a while.
‘Too late for visiting,’ she then snapped. ‘There are sick people here who can’t be disturbed. Some of them are dying and they won’t want the likes of you trying to keep them in this world.’
‘We come in search of our friend,’ Raphah said. ‘You may know him; his mother was brought here some time ago from Baytown.’
‘They’re in the end room by the fire,’ the woman snapped again. ‘She ain’t got long, she may still be alive if you hurry; but don’t be staying all night because I like to have the comforters gone and them all tucked up by midnight.’
They walked cautiously past the beds of the sick and dying like a procession of mourners, first Raphah, then Kate, and then Abram. Raphah looked at each bed with its candle on a small table, each patient strapped tightly in by well-folded blankets with corners tucked firmly under the straw mattresses. Some of the patients reached out as they walked by, holding out hands to be touched; the sound of choking and coughing filled the long room.
‘Ignore them,’ the woman shouted above the noise. ‘Like little children they are, just wish they’d get on and die.’ They were comfortless words.
It was the sound of Thomas’s voice coming from the room that heralded their arrival. He sat at the side of the bed sobbing, his hands clasped together as if he were praying, the Keruvim placed at the bottom of the bed staring blindly. He didn’t look up from his tears or turn to greet them.
‘It didn’t work, Raphah. I brought it here to heal her and it didn’t work. It’s all a lie; there’s no power, there’s no goodness. I’ve shouted at Riathamus and he’s as deaf as the statue, either that or he doesn’t care if she dies.’ He turned and looked at them through tear-filled eyes. ‘She’s all I’ve got and now even that’ll be snatched from me.’
Raphah noticed a small brown pot of salt sitting on the table by the bed. By the side were a piece of stale soaked bread and a sprig of bitter herbs. Thomas noticed him looking.
‘It’s for when she dies. I’ll dip the bread in the salt and eat it with the herbs. I’ll take her sin into me, she’ll leave this world clean and she can go to the dead life without being purged and tortured for what she did wrong.’ He sobbed. ‘I’ve done it a hundred times before, dined with the dead. So it’s the least I can do for my own mother. A thousand more sins won’t make much difference to me. I’ll be in the dark place for eternity when I die.’
‘Don’t do it at all. It is written that the souls of the faithful go straight to be with Riathamus. What you have been told is a tradition made by men. Don’t fool yourself with this stupid magic. All you’ve seen should prove that to you,’ Raphah said.
‘Why don’t you pray for her, Raphah? You pray for everyone else, why not for her?’ Thomas cried.
There was an unwelcome silence in the room broken only by the rattle of each breath that his mother strained into her body. She reached out to touch his face. Her eyes never opened and as she laboured for breath she appeared as one drowning, reaching out for a hand to save her.
‘Do something, Raphah … Abram, help him … Help me. This is my mother – she needs you. Where is your faith now?’ Thomas pleaded.
Abram didn’t reply. He took the long black case from his back. Flipped the clasp and stood it upright against the wall just behind him.
‘I’ll pray for her, Thomas, but this illness could be to death. It may not be his will,’ Raphah said gently.
‘So it’s all right to heal a deaf boy and a murderer, but my mother’s different, is she? Not worth it? Or aren’t there enough people to see your magic?’ he said bitterly.
Raphah didn’t reply. He leant over the bed and placed his hand on her head. It was surprisingly cold for one who looked so racked with fever. As he touched her skin a strange sensation ran the length of his arm, as if he had touched something foul. He pulled his hand back from her clammy flesh.
Thomas’s mother began to breathe heavily and a deep cough barked in her throat as she struggled to gulp the stale air. She was dying. She clutched Thomas’s hand tightly, squeezing his flesh with her fingers and twisting his hand in hers. Her head rose from the pillow and her eyelids opened to reveal the whites of her eyes staring out of deep, drawn sockets.
‘She’s dying,’ he wept. ‘Can’t you help her for my sake? I thought you were a friend.’ Raphah did not reply. He looked at Abram who shook his head then looked out of the door of the room, concerned that something was not as it should be.
She pulled Thomas closer and closer to her face as if she was trying to give him one final kiss, a last reward for his faithfulness. He reached out to her, trying to hold her head in his hands, to cradle that which once showed him so much love. She opened her mouth as if to say one last word, the wrinkles of her hard life began to fade as death consumed her. She smiled one last, loving and tender smile.
It happened in a split second as she bit at his neck with the ferocity of a lion, her long gold teeth sinking into the soft skin, trying to capture the vein as she scratched at his face with her long sharp nails. Her once blind eyes suddenly glowed a deep cat-like green as she leapt forward, still clenching his throat in her mouth, and pushed him to the floor with amazing strength.
‘Glashan!’ Abram shouted as he grabbed the long thin sword from the case and lashed out at Thomas’s mother, striking a blow across her back. The blade sang through the air leaving a trail of fiery vapour. It struck the Glashan, cutting through its back and snuffing out the flame.
The door to the infirmary burst open as three more creatures spilled into the long room and ran towards them. Thomas got up from the floor, blood oozing from the wound in his neck.
‘It’s not her. The thief tricked me and I believed him,’ Thomas shouted as he kicked away the halved corpse of the Glashan that struggled to keep hold of his leg.
‘We’re trapped in here,’ Kate cried as Abram guarded the door.
‘It’s time to fight for your lives,’ Abram shouted as the Glashan stood before them. ‘Kate, do you have the Abaris crystal?’
She looked around the room for the goatskin bag and realized that in the haste to find Thomas she had left it in the house.
‘It’s at Mulberry’s … I forgot it …’
‘Then we must fight with what we have and make our way to the church.’ He dipped the point of the sword on to the cold stone floor. It melted through the stone without effort. ‘Well, then: with the Sword of Mayence, Varrigal iron, the Keruvim and the hearts of the faithful, let this battle begin,’ he exclaimed a
s he took the sword and began to swing it round and round his head. ‘Come under the sword, we’ll fight close quarters; whatever you do, keep to me. Whatever you feel, keep your eyes fixed on Riathamus. Now come on; we fight to the door.’
Abram shouted out a long, loud cry in a language that none could understand. It sounded above the moans of the dying like the shrill call of some giant bird in full flight or the call of the leviathan rising from the deep. They charged at the wall of Glashan that stood between them and freedom. Abram swirled the sword, striking out at the attackers. The Glashan struck back with long, spiked staffs. One leapt on to the blade with no care for his death as it effortlessly sliced through his flesh several times. Another lashed out with a long knife that sucked the air from Thomas’s lungs as the blow glanced past his face.
One by one the Glashan were struck down by Abram as the four made their escape. At times the fighting was so intense that Kate feared that with each step she would be cut to the ground. The sound of the Sword of Mayence whirling above her head and the screams as it sliced through flesh and bone made her tremble with fear.
Abram got to the doorway as the three sheltered beneath the protection of the sword.
‘Run for the church. Get to the sanctuary by the altar, nothing can harm you there. I will follow,’ he said as without warning more Glashan rose from the bodies of the sick and the dying and came towards him.
‘Where are they coming from?’ Raphah shouted as he fell backwards out of the door.
‘They use the moment of death as a doorway to this place. Now run quickly, you must get to the altar.’
They ran for all they were worth, Thomas clutching at the wound to his neck and Raphah holding his branded shoulder, which burnt with more fire than ever, the pain visible across his face. Kate was pushing them both to run faster. Behind them the sound of battle grew louder and louder, the screams of the Glashan cutting through the cold night air.
Before them the church door stood open and the glow of the candles could be seen through the stained-glass windows. They ran through the gravestones of saints and sinners, fishers and freemen, until they reached the tall oak door. Raphah looked up. Above his head was a painting of a white stag impaled with an arrow. The stag wore a crown and a holly wreath around its neck, whilst all around hands stretched out to it from the darkness.
Kate pushed them along into the church. They turned to the right and went through two wooden doors. Before them was a long aisle lit by candles that hung over each box pew. In front of them was a tall three-tier pulpit with wooden canopy and a solitary red candle lighting the black prayer book that lay open on its cushion.
Thomas shuddered. Here was the chamber of his dream; this was the place of fear. He found he couldn’t move. It was as if an unseen force had gripped him. He tried to speak but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Kate pushed him and he stumbled towards the sanctuary steps that were covered with a thick red carpet.
‘We’re nearly there, come on, Thomas, we’ll be safe soon, they can’t get us in the sanctuary,’ she said.
‘No-but I can,’ came the voice from the pulpit. ‘Glashan and Varrigal may be bound by the law of sanctity but I am not.’ It was Demurral, high above them.
It was exactly as Thomas had seen. He was petrified and stood rooted to the spot.
‘Give the Keruvim to me freely and I will let you go. If I have to take it from you I assure you that you will all die here,’ Demurral said as he began to come slowly down from the pulpit step by step.
‘Come into the sanctuary,’ Raphah shouted. ‘I’d rather die where I choose to than where that dog wants me to.’
‘Give it to him, Raphah, then he’ll let us go,’ Kate said as she dragged Thomas to the steps. To each side of the chancel steps were two stone pillars supporting a balcony. On each one was engraved a name in gold; on the right Boaz, on the left Jachin.
‘Tell him, Raphah. Tell him he can have the statue,’ she pleaded as she pulled Thomas with all her strength.
Raphah stood at the top of the steps looking for a way to escape. To his left was a small bolted door just big enough for a man to pass through. Behind him was the wooden altar set in the pitch darkness of the chancel. This was sanctuary … Kate pulled Thomas across on to the first step. It was as if he was suddenly released from tightly binding chains. The holiness of the place had broken the power of Demurral’s grip on him. They felt as though they had crossed the border into a new world, a world of peace and freedom.
Thomas sprang to life with a newfound bravery and pulled the Varrigal sword from his coat. ‘He will come for us,’ he declared, ‘but he will not take me again!’
Defiantly, he stood on the top step and waited for Demurral to approach.
‘So you think a sword can stop me, do you?’ The priest walked the final few paces to the steps.
‘Do not cross that line,’ Thomas said staunchly. ‘This is a holy place and not for people like you.’ He thrust the sword out towards Demurral as he spoke.
‘Bravery. One minute fear, the next you will take on the world. How will you stand against this?’ Demurral waved his hand above his head. Every candle in the church guttered for a moment, as if its light were being sucked into some dark hole. In the gallery above the door the pews were suddenly filled with a whole army of Varrigal, dressed in death black and staring down through blood-red eyes.
‘Lock the doors!’ Demurral shouted. ‘They will not leave this place alive, even if we wait until Christmas.’
He waved his hand. ‘Think again, give the Keruvim to me.’ A Varrigal aimed its crossbow directly at Thomas’s head. Thomas looked up and saw the creature begin to pull back the lever.
‘If I give the word the quarrel will drop you to the floor, dead. I could do with someone like you. Beadle is past his best – given to fits of compassion. You would be better suited to the job. Come with me, follow me.’
‘I follow no one but Riathamus.’ Thomas felt the strange words burst from his mouth and bring tears to his eyes. ‘If I die here, I die well. Do what you will, I fear neither you nor death any longer.’
Demurral gave an almost unseen signal to the waiting Varrigal. The quarrel leapt from the bow and darted through the air. Time stood still. Thomas watched as the bolt slithered through the ether towards him. He smiled. He could hear nothing but the sound of the quarrel spinning.
The bolt shattered abruptly as it hit the air of the chancel. It exploded in mid-flight, showering Demurral in shards of broken crystal that clinked across the stone floor.
‘See,’ shouted Raphah. ‘This is the place of peace. Nothing from Pyratheon will harm us here.’
‘Speak of the devil and he shall appear …’ the voice came out of the darkness from the direction of the altar behind him. Raphah turned. There stood Pyratheon.
‘How?’ Raphah asked.
‘You forget I was once an angel. I stood in the presence of God. I may not like it here but I can cope for a while.’ Pyratheon walked towards Raphah. ‘So you are Raphah, the healer, keeper of the Keruvim. A mighty work for someone so young, so pretty and so naïve. Now give it to me and stop your fooling.’ Pyratheon held out his hand, Raphah stood his ground. ‘Don’t mess with me, boy, if I take it then you die.’
‘Then I die,’ Raphah said calmly.
In a fit of sudden anger Pyratheon lashed out with his fist. The blow struck Raphah on the face blasting him from his feet and through the air. He crashed against the wooden door. The Keruvim fell to the ground at the feet of Pyratheon, Raphah crumpled into a lifeless heap on the cold stone floor. It was an uneventful death, quite unspectacular. They could see the golden shimmering over the body as his soul clung to the last few seconds of life.
‘At last, after five thousand years it is mine.’
He bent down to pick up the statue. Thomas ran the seven paces and jumped through the air. As he landed he plunged the sword as hard and as deep as he could into Pyratheon. They fell to the floor together. Demurral rus
hed up the steps and seized hold of Kate. Pyratheon got to his feet, the Varrigal sword embedded in his chest. Thomas grabbed at his legs. Pyratheon stooped down and with one hand lifted him off the ground and held him with an outstretched arm away from him, then tossed Thomas across the floor towards Demurral.
‘Take him – he will come in useful. Give her to the Glashan,’ said Pyratheon.
Through the stained-glass windows of the church the light of flaming torches flickered against the stone walls. A slow thud-thud-thud echoed through the night air, as the door vibrated to the beating of a hundred men.
‘Stand back,’ came a cry as the fuse of a cannon hissed.
The explosion blasted against the door, sending splinters of wood through the church as the iron ball smashed through at point-blank range and then spun and bounced into the church, crashing against each box pew as it hurtled towards them.
The Varrigal leapt from the gallery swords in hand, as the first men stormed through the broken church door screaming and lashing out at those who stood before them. Jacob Crane stepped into the church, sword and pistol at the ready, his men fighting for every inch of the holy ground against an enemy they had never seen before.
One by one the Varrigal fell back until a wall of swords pushed them from the aisle. Jacob Crane walked towards Demurral. He lifted the pistol and aimed it at his head.
‘Let them go!’ he ordered as he pulled back the hammer.
Pyratheon laughed in disbelief. ‘Who is this man?’ he asked.
‘A smuggler, a pirate, an irritating carbuncle,’ Demurral spat.
There was a sudden whirring of machinery as the working of the church clock lifted back the hammers to strike midnight against the bass bell.
‘You have till the last bell has sounded and then I’ll blow your head off your shoulders,’ Crane said calmly as he took aim.
