Druid's Sword

by Sara Douglass

  He opened his mouth to ask, but she dropped her eyes away from his, and Jack knew Grace well enough by now to know she would not give him an answer.

  “Jack?” said Silvius, interrupting Jack’s train of thought.

  “Yes?”

  “There is one person we haven’t heard from today…and I think we need to. Badly.”

  Jack frowned at his father, then his expression cleared. “Oh. Weyland, do you have any input?”

  It was very clear to Silvius that neither Jack nor Noah thought Weyland had anything to say at all. In fact, Noah’s expression was so lovingly indulgent it bordered on the condescending.

  For the longest moment Silvius thought Weyland wasn’t going to speak. Then, staring into the fire, refusing to look at anyone, Weyland finally began talking.

  “The imps have been murdering the women to feed the shadow. It feeds from terror and death. The imps work for it, or worship it, I don’t know.”

  “Weyland—” Jack began.

  “I watched them,” said Weyland, his voice horribly flat. “Several nights ago. Murder a woman by means so slow that she died in degrees in agony and terror. The shadow fed from that terror.”

  Finally he looked up, the expression in his eyes terrible. “I’m with my daughter. I don’t think this shadow is a ‘weakness’ at all. I think it is something constructed by Catling and designed to trap or destroy us.”

  There was a lengthy silence following Weyland’s words.

  “Weyland,” Jack said eventually, his voice surprisingly even and calm, “what do you know of the imps? What have they been up to these past few hundred years?”

  “I have barely registered them,” Weyland said. “I knew they were about the city. Occasionally I could sense them up to some mischief—nothing dramatic, just mischief—but nothing spectacular.”

  “They’re still Catling’s instruments?” Jack said.

  Weyland gave a small shrug. “So far as I know. They’re not my instruments. Not any more.”

  “We need to speak to the imps,” said Noah. “Perhaps they can tell us—”

  “They’re hardly likely to spout forth helpfully,” snapped Weyland. “Besides, I have been trying to find them for the past few weeks, and it was only because I’d been keeping an eye on St Magnus the Martyr that I eventually saw them. If the imps don’t particularly want to be found, then they won’t be.”

  “Father?” Grace said. “Why St Magnus the Martyr? Why leave the bodies there?”

  Again Weyland shrugged, but his expression softened as he regarded his daughter. “It isn’t like the imps to be neat and tidy. There must be a good reason for that church, for its porch, but I don’t know what it could be.”

  “I don’t think any of us can know what to infer from what Weyland has told us,” said Silvius. “The imps could be trying to repair a weakness with fresh blood, or they could be strengthening a trap.”

  “Or they could be feeding something monstrous of which we have as yet no idea,” said Weyland, his voice hard-edged.

  “Or they could be feeding something unknown and monstrous,” Silvius agreed. “But unless someone can find the imps, and they actually talk, then we’re still in the same dilemma we’ve been in for months. Only Jack and Grace can discover anything new about this shadow, and only at a snail’s pace. Weyland, can you continue to try to find the imps? Try to discover the reason behind their actions?”

  Weyland gave a curt nod.

  “Jack,” Silvius said, “I don’t think you really have any option, unless you want to wait another twenty years until you and Grace have mapped out this shadow in its entirety. You’re going to need to probe the shadow. See what happens.”

  “The Faerie won’t survive the twenty or so years it will take for Grace and me to map it entirely,” Jack muttered. “Frankly, at the moment I’m almost more scared of the Lord of the Faerie than I am of Catling…or of whatever monstrosity that shadow is.”

  “Besides,” said Noah, “too many women are dying.”

  Jack nodded, his face grim. “We need to move, and we need to do so soon.”

  “For all the gods’ sakes—” Weyland began.

  “We’ll be careful, Weyland,” Jack said. “I promise you.”

  Weyland looked at Grace, hunched into her chair, and the expression on his face made tears spring to Silvius’ eyes.

  No one saw Malcolm at the door, edging back into the shadows.

  The group broke up within minutes, and while Noah was talking to Jack, Weyland managed a few words with Grace as they waited in the Daimler.

  “Grace, are you sure you want to keep on helping Jack? I am terrified for you.” Weyland was leaning over the driver’s seat, looking at Grace seated in the back.

  “I enjoy helping Jack, father. I know it is risky, and I am careful, but I think I would go mad if I stayed in the apartment.”

  “I do not know,” Weyland said softly, “if I am more afraid of what the imps might do to you, or of what Jack might. Grace, Grace, please be careful.”

  She shifted forward on the car seat and kissed his cheek softly. “I will be careful.”

  Later, when the others had gone, Silvius sat back in his chair, his whisky glass refilled, and regarded his son speculatively.

  “What do you think about what Weyland said?” he asked.

  Jack sighed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “I don’t truly know. I don’t doubt what he saw, but there are so many interpretations. Gods alone know what those imps may think they are doing. They could just as easily have seen the shadow and decided to worship it, and sacrifice to it. It doesn’t mean that the shadow is connected to the murders at all.”

  “On the other hand…”

  “On the other hand, if it is connected…”

  Silvius downed his whisky. “Jack, be careful. Not only of the shadow, but of Weyland. Weyland fears for his daughter, and he fears losing Noah. Be careful.”

  Jack grunted, refilling Silvius’ glass.

  “Now,” said Silvius, “for something a little lighter, if no less worrying for Weyland. What’s going on with you and Grace?”

  Jack managed an easy grin, which didn’t fool his father for an instant. “She’s helping me to discover—”

  “Don’t feed me that line, Jack. Something else is going on. And I’m intrigued about the girl. She’s at the centre of this puzzle. How is it that she can help you plot out the difference, and not Noah? What’s going on?”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t really know, Silvius. She’s…I don’t know what to think of her.” He paused, thinking, then leaned forward in his chair.

  “I should have spoken to you of this earlier,” Jack said, “but I thought that perhaps if I could discover more about Grace myself, then…but she’s such a troubling conundrum. Silvius, I remember you telling me once, and Membricus…remember him?”

  Silvius nodded. Membricus had been Jack’s tutor and lover when he had lived as Brutus and had been involved with Brutus’ initial training as a Kingman.

  “Well,” Jack said, “Membricus also told me that sometimes a Kingman encounters a Mistress whose power precisely fits his. A perfect, harmonious match. A hand-in-glove fit, or whatever other cliche you want to use. A Mistress who would so seamlessly complement his power that whatever Game they danced together would be flawless, more powerful beyond knowing.”

  Silvius’ mouth had dropped open. “You’re not telling me that…”

  “Aye. Grace is my match. Her power, that is. She is my perfect dancing partner.”

  Her power, that is. As stunned as Silvius was, he couldn’t help but wonder why Jack felt the need to add that qualifier.

  “Not Noah?” Silvius said.

  Jack sat back in his chair, and studied his hands as Grace had studied hers earlier. He did not respond.

  Silvius’ sense of astonishment deepened. All Jack had ever wanted was Noah. They’d been tied together with such bonds of hate and love, power and ambition, that he could hardly believe now that
Jack just sat there and studied his hands indifferently at the question.

  “When you returned home from your exile,” said Silvius, “you appeared determined to get Noah back. I don’t see that man sitting before me now.”

  Jack took a long time in responding, and when he did his voice was very soft, and he would not look at his father. “I am tired of it,” he said. “Tired of loving her and wanting her and never managing to achieve her.”

  He looked up. “And when I slept with her on the night of the Great Marriage…all I felt was disappointment. A wish to be somewhere else. Noah keeps dropping hints, subconscious or not, I am not sure, that if I put a little effort into it, well, then, maybe I might have a chance.”

  “And you haven’t roused yourself for that effort?”

  “Catling spoke to me after the Great Marriage,” Jack said. “She asked me, and forgive the vulgarism, but I only repeat her words, whether the fuck was worth the wait. And you know what?”

  “It wasn’t?”

  Jack shook his head. “I told Catling that it had been, but, no. It wasn’t. Not really. Three thousand years is too long to yearn for someone and never achieve her.”

  “And especially when that someone has such a lovely enigmatic daughter. Who is your perfect, harmonious match.”

  Jack was silent.

  “Jack, what’s happening here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Silvius doubted that very much. “Grace is very important, isn’t she?”

  Jack gave a half shrug. “She’s at the centre of everything. Tied to Catling by hex; my absolute match in power; the only one besides me who can prise open the secrets of this shadow hanging over London; beloved of ancient druids—”

  “You must mean Malcolm, from your comment earlier.”

  “Yes.” Jack told his father about Malcolm. “He has an astounding interest in her, but won’t tell me why. And…”

  “And?”

  “You know that Noah secreted four of the kingship bands inside the Faerie?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not there, Silvius. They never left Grace. They’re resting within her flesh.”

  “Gods!” Silvius was so shocked his empty whisky glass slipped from his grip and rolled over the carpet.

  Jack rose, picked it up, refilled both it and his own, then sat down again, handing Silvius his glass.

  “She’s an enigma,” Jack said with a wry grin.

  “Is she dangerous?”

  Jack hesitated. “No.” He saw his father’s raised eyebrow. “I hesitated only because I honestly can’t believe she is not dangerous, but she isn’t. Did you hear that she appeared at my marking?”

  Silvius nodded.

  “Well, I tested her then. My marks, which come from the land itself, examined her, and they found…”

  Silvius understood what it was Jack wasn’t saying. “And they found her instantly—” he paused, wondering how to put it “—compatible?”

  “Yes.”

  Silvius took a hefty sip of his whisky. “Jack, I really don’t know how to ask this, or even if I should, but…what do you feel for Grace?”

  He thought Jack would never answer. Jack sat back in his chair, his eyes on his whisky as he swilled it about his glass.

  “Silvius,” he said finally, “I don’t want to fuck up again. I really don’t.”

  “Are you sure you can break the habit?”

  Jack laughed softly. “No, I’m not sure.” He sobered. “And thus…Silvius, I don’t want to hurt Grace, and I don’t want to mess things up any more than I already have, and I don’t know if I can bear the pain of loving again. I don’t know if I have the energy for it.”

  “And yet she is your perfect, harmonious power match. And she can understand this strange labyrinthine puzzle in a way that Noah can’t. And you say she has the bands concealed within her flesh. Jack, does she know they’re there?”

  “I don’t know. It isn’t something I’ve broached with her. I can’t believe that Noah doesn’t know.”

  Silvius let that last pass. “Jack, I don’t think you can risk letting Grace slip away and I think she’s stronger than you think she is. I also think you’re terrified to get too close to her in case you learn to love her.”

  Silvius thought Jack was already mostly there, but decided it was better to carry on the pretence that Jack might actually have some say in whether he tipped over the edge or not.

  “Silvius, what do I do?”

  “Jack, let me give you some advice. You need to make it perfectly clear to both Grace and Noah what you have made clear to me tonight—that Noah is no longer the centre and meaning of your existence. Both Grace and her mother need to know that. That doesn’t mean committing to Grace—”

  Jack grunted.

  “It bloody doesn’t, Jack. Stop trying to find excuses for procrastinating. You need to do it, for the reason that knowing is the only thing that is going to bring Grace out of her shell. Damn it, from what you’ve told me and from what I’ve observed tonight, Grace is so intimidated by your and Noah’s history—and, yes, there’s jealousy there as well, but that’s only a small part of it—that she is never going to fly, until she knows there is room in the sky for her.”

  “You’ve become quite the lyricist, father.”

  Silvius grinned. Jack only called him “father” when he was truly annoyed. “You’ve got to make room in the sky for her, Jack. You’re the only one who can do that.”

  “How? What do you want me to do?”

  “Court her, Jack. Over the past three thousand years you’ve raped and bullied and threatened and taken women. Have you ever taken the time to court one?”

  “Matilda—”

  “Matilda you just decided you wanted, and she you. I doubt there was any ‘courting’ involved at all. Courting takes time, Jack. It means that either of you can pull back, think, inch forward again if you want to. It doesn’t mean commitment. It just means taking a very close look at it.”

  “Is that what you’re doing with Ariadne?”

  Silvius roared with laughter. “We’re circling warily, laddie. We’re both too jaded for courting.”

  “As am I.”

  “No. I don’t think you are, and Grace certainly isn’t. Try it out, and, who knows, you may enjoy it.” He paused. “I also think you’ll discover a great deal more about her.”

  “I don’t want to trick her.”

  “Then don’t say or do anything you don’t mean, Jack. But I think Grace is the only one who can solve the problem of this shadow labyrinth hanging over London.” He grinned. “And don’t forget she has four of your kingship bands embedded in her flesh. She isn’t going to give those to you if you’re not very, very nice to her.”

  Jack grunted, and busied himself with his whisky.

  “Jack, can I say something else to you? Something about this labyrinthine puzzle? Open your mind, and consider this: what if this shadow is not a weakness, and not even a trap? What if it is something else?”

  Very early the next morning, almost dawn, the imps were disturbed from their hiding place in an abandoned warehouse in London’s wharf district by a soft call.

  “It’s her!” whispered Bill. “Jim! Jim! It is her!”

  Jim scrambled to his feet, dusting down his clothes. “Get yourself presentable, man!” he hissed at his brother. “She hates it when—”

  “No need for fuss,” said the dark-haired woman, walking silently into the little back room the imps had bedded down in. “I don’t need ceremony.”

  The imps both were standing now, hands folded before them, heads hanging guiltily.

  “Have we done something to offend?” said Jim.

  The woman tipped her cold, white face to one side, regarding them. “You mean the murders?” She considered it a moment. “Of course not. It was needed, and I thank you for it. All my plans would have gone awry if you hadn’t…helped.”

  The imps beamed.

  “But now,” the woman c
ontinued, “the murders must stop. Weyland has seen you.”

  “Oh!” cried the imps as one, their faces falling.

  “And Weyland has told all his friends,” the woman continued. “Malcolm came to me this past night, and told me that Jack wants to speak to you.”

  “We won’t be found,” said Bill. “Promise.”

  “Indeed you won’t,” said the woman. “I am sure I can find some mischief for you across the Channel. I shall find transport for you within the day. The murders must stop. It is enough.”

  “But the dancing needs to feed!” cried Jim.

  “And it shall,” said the woman. “Tonight it shall have all the food it needs to grow strong and healthy.”

  “Tonight?” said Bill. “But you told us that…” He broke off, watching his mistress’s face. “Oh, it is to begin, then.”

  Both the imps smiled and, after a moment, so also did the cold-faced woman.

  The new day dawned clear and bright, a beautiful early autumn day.

  There was little enemy aircraft activity over England during the morning, but in the early afternoon Luftwaffe aircraft, numbering over a thousand planes in total, formed up over Calais.

  In mid-afternoon, with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring watching by the seashore, the planes turned for England.

  And London.

  The bombs first fell in the East End, lighting terrible infernos. Then, as the afternoon and evening wore on, the bombs and fires spread to the central part of the city. The fires lit the way for successive waves of Luftwaffe bombers. During the night enemy aircraft continued to drop bombs into the massive firestorms raging through London. The city’s defences, faced with their first test, could not cope with the onslaught and the complete chaos on the ground. There were too few firemen and engines for the firestorms, and what effort they could make was compounded by an almost complete failure of the city’s water mains and the thousands of people, covered with blast dust, wandering dazed and shocked in the streets.

  When Sunday morning dawned, much of the City and the East End lay in ruins, the docks were almost completely destroyed, and over eighteen hundred Londoners were dead or terribly injured. Burned corpses littered the streets or lay dismembered amid the rubble of homes.