Druid's Sword

by Sara Douglass

  After that occasion, when Catling had first revealed the horrific extent of her hex, I’d not been back. I’d had no desire to visit, and neither of my parents had ever suggested it. I had, of course, been completely terrified of the cathedral, and I wasn’t feeling much more confident now.

  We walked very slowly down the south aisle, Jack taking my hand as soon as we’d passed the sentinel by the door.

  I was getting used to this holding of hands, getting used to being with Jack as a matter of course, getting used to being comfortable with him.

  What I was not comfortable with was being inside this beautiful, terrible cathedral.

  I shrank closer to Jack as we walked, wanting the comfort of his height and warmth and strength. To our left lay the nave, but we didn’t enter it, keeping instead to the aisle.

  Everything was dim. A few lights shone, mostly in the aisles, but they were spaced far apart, and there were pools of darkness between them. Every time we walked into one of those pools of darkness I’d shrink even closer against Jack and hold my breath until we’d regained the light. From the tenseness of Jack’s body, I guessed he wasn’t feeling much better.

  We couldn’t see anyone else, although we could sense that there were some fifteen or more men of the cathedral Watch either in the crypt or patrolling the cathedral’s upper spaces. Occasionally we heard a soft step in the far distance, but it was always too distant to trouble us.

  We continued to walk down the south aisle, pausing occasionally to look around, until we reached Sir Christopher Wren’s great dome.

  Here we halted, just where the dome met the south transept, and stared upwards.

  The top of the dome was hidden in darkness, but we could feel it.

  “So much has happened here, in dream and vision,” Jack said softly. “Here, in Cornelia’s stone hall.”

  I had heard some of this from either my mother or Ecub over the years, but I am certain they had never told me the full extent of my mother’s and Jack’s meetings in here.

  I wondered what had gone on; if they had made love under this dome.

  “I have shouted words of hate and love to Noah here,” said Jack, his voice now so quiet I had to strain to hear it. “I have seen your father make love to her here.”

  That was new to me, and I lifted my face and studied his.

  “Your mother, whether as Cornelia or Caela or Noah, also saw visions of the little girl she thought was her daughter in here, running towards her, calling her name…and all that little girl ever was was a lie we now call Catling.”

  I shivered, and he squeezed my hand.

  “And to think,” he said, “that this was my creation. Mine and Genvissa’s.”

  “Well,” I said, thinking I had to say something, “it is very big.”

  He started to chuckle.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and he laughed the harder, pulling me back into the south transept where there was but one weak lamp glowing amid all the vast darkness.

  He dampened his laughter and took my face in his hands. “That’s one of the things I like most about you, Grace,” he said. “Your terrible, terrible sense of flattery.”

  I grinned. “That’s my Granny Ariadne coming out.”

  His thumbs were stroking along the side of my face, and I have to admit they felt good. I decided to take my courage in hand and, standing on my toes, kissed him softly on the mouth.

  “Very sweet. I have to admit, I didn’t predict this particular development.”

  We sprang apart, although Jack snatched at my hand to stop me from darting off into the vast dark spaces of the cathedral.

  Catling laughed. She was somewhere in the darkness, but neither Jack nor I could quite make out the direction of her voice.

  “What are you doing here?” she said. “Come to pray?”

  “Come to walk the cathedral,” I said, “to measure your worth.”

  Catling drew in a theatrical breath of shocked surprise. “Ooooh! Such brave words from such a faint-hearted girl! Come on then, what do you here, eh?”

  Footsteps sounded from the dome, shuffling closer and closer to us, but they kept to the dark spaces, and still we couldn’t see the hateful creature.

  “Come to measure your worth,” said Jack in a voice flat with hatred, “and to measure our courage.”

  “And do you have such measure?” she said. “Of both worth and courage?”

  “The visit has firmed in my mind,” he said, “the conviction that I would do anything to save Grace.”

  Catling laughed again, and I wondered if there was a hint of relief in the sound.

  “Good. That’s good, Jack. You’ll do anything to save Grace. And you know there’s only one way to do that, don’t you, Jack?”

  Silence. “Don’t you, Jack?”

  “Aye,” he said, his voice still flat. “Aye. I know that.”

  “Good,” Catling said, “then your visit was worth it. Stay a while, why don’t you, and enjoy the ambience.”

  And then she was gone. Although we could not see, we knew it instantly.

  Catling had left us alone.

  An age seemed to pass while we stood there, silent, staring into the dark.

  “Was that why we were supposed to come, I wonder?” I said eventually.

  No, Jack said into my mind, she knew nothing about it. Be careful what you say, Grace.

  I bit my lip. If the shadow is connected to Catling, I said, then perhaps she has delivered the message she wanted.

  “She could have done that at any time,” said Jack, his own voice irritated now. “Look, Grace, let’s stay a while longer. At least the place is full of benches.”

  He led me into the space under the dome, then into the nave. “Here,” he said, pulling me towards the vast acreage of benches and pews in the nave. “We can sit here.” And wait.

  What if nothing happens? I said, sitting down next to him on a pew some three or four back from the dome. “What if—”

  “Then we can just sit, Grace. Okay?”

  We sat in silence for some time, both of us looking forward. I began to hope that nothing would happen, because even though we sat in St Paul’s under Catling’s eye, and even though Jack was in a tired and cross mood, I was enjoying this stillness and silence with him, feeling his warmth and his slow breathing next to me. Just enjoying being with him. Normally I hated it when someone became cross and irritable, but Jack’s mood didn’t bother me this time, or spoil my enjoyment of being with him.

  After a while, Jack sighed, slid an arm about my shoulders, and pulled me close. “Go to sleep, if you want, Grace,” he whispered. I will keep watch.

  But I didn’t sleep. I didn’t want to. I much preferred staying awake, feeling his warmth and closeness, feeling his chest rise and fall under my cheek.

  We waited.

  Hours passed. I don’t know how many, but long enough for both of us to grow chilled and stiff. I had fallen into a limbo somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, and I think he had, too. Even the commencement of bombing for that night did not make us stir. We were far too used to it.

  Time passed.

  GraceJack! GraceJack! Are you awake?

  We were both startled.

  Look up, GraceJack. Look up.

  We looked up.

  It was as if the entire roof structure and dome of the cathedral had vanished. We could see the night sky—the churning clouds of the weather and the successive rolling waves of rain, although they did not touch us.

  And we could see something else, something so faint we had to strain our eyes.

  We saw faint luminescent lines tracing through the sky.

  “Jack?”

  Shush. Use your mind voice, Grace.

  Damn it! Jack, what are those…I wouldn’t say it. I knew he could see them as well as I.

  I don’t know.

  Watch, came the unknown whisper, and the clouds parted as if by a divine hand, and we could see far, far into the night; so far, that we could dist
inguish the bombers circling overhead.

  As the bombers appeared more clearly, so the faint luminescent lines (of the shadow! We were being shown the shadow!) glowed ever brighter, as if they were taking sustenance from the German aircraft.

  Jack fumbled for my hand, and I clung to it. It’s the shadow, I whispered into his mind, and he gave a terse nod.

  A bomb came down.

  We knew there were many bombs coming down, but we saw only one. It twisted lazily through the sky, gusting this way and that as the wind caught it, and, as we watched, it seemed to be that the luminescent lines reached out to the bomb, and brushed against it.

  Turning it now this way, and now that.

  As the lines touched the bomb, they glowed anew, as if taking strength from the weapon.

  I had eyes for nothing but the bomb, falling straight for the cathedral.

  “Grace!” Jack said, then lurched to his feet, pulling me with him.

  We stared a moment longer, mesmerised by the deadly sight, then Jack grabbed at my hand and arm, tugged so hard I felt my shoulder joint groan and almost give way, and then we were running down the nave, running back towards the west doors, running for our lives…

  This was a trick of Catling’s, after all. She’d merely been toying with us. Playing with us for her own amusement.

  We’d almost got to the doors when we stopped, and turned around. I don’t know why we did this, but we both seemed impelled to turn around right at that moment.

  There was a terrible crashing and thundering noise, and then we saw the bomb, saw it as if it were only a few feet away, tumbling through the roof above the quire, then falling free of slate and rafters and stone, falling through the air.

  And striking the High Altar, where it exploded.

  The blast threw Jack and me off our feet. My head hit something, and I blacked out.

  TEN

  Faerie Hill Manor

  Thursday, 10th October 1940

  Grace sat on the sofa in the drawing room of Faerie Hill Manor, two plasters on the left side of her forehead. Her face was wan, her clothes stained and dusty and torn in places. Jack sat next to her, an abrasion on his chin, his jacket and trousers streaked with blast dust.

  Noah, Weyland, Ariadne, Silvius and the Lord of the Faerie sat about in chairs, cups of coffee in their hands, looking at Grace and Jack.

  For a long time no one said anything.

  Grace had only blacked out for a few seconds after the blast, then she and Jack had stumbled out of the cathedral, somehow avoiding the scurrying members of the cathedral Watch, and made it back to Jack’s Austin. He’d driven straight to Faerie Hill Manor, sending a mental request to the others to meet them there.

  He’d not said why, nor given them any indication that he and Grace had been so close to disaster.

  In truth, Jack thought, he’d been closer to disaster when Noah and Weyland saw the state of their daughter. There had been a few tense moments as Noah fussed and Weyland went very still and silent. Ariadne and Silvius, arriving a few minutes later, had taken one look at the tableau and had just sat down silently, wisely deciding to wait for explanations.

  Harry, who had opened the door to them, had instantly and instinctively metamorphosed back to his greater self as the Lord of the Faerie.

  Once Grace had assured her parents she was but scratched and shaken, Silvius went off to organise some coffee.

  Now everyone waited.

  Jack sighed and set his coffee aside. He described briefly what had happened, from the voice he and Grace had heard, to watching the luminescent lines above St Paul’s and the descent of the bomb.

  Once he had finished, there was silence as everyone stared at Grace and himself.

  “Jack?” said Noah eventually. “What does this mean? Who is this voice? A shadow doesn’t have a voice. A weakness doesn’t have a voice.”

  “I still think it might be Catling,” said Grace.

  Knowing how Grace felt about the shadow, Jack was not surprised at this statement, but he was surprised at the level of doubt in her voice.

  “Catling didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “On that I would stake my life. Besides, it just doesn’t make sense for it to be Catling.”

  “There are very few possibilities,” said Silvius. “Everything concerning this shadow indicates it is labyrinthine in nature. Whoever this voice is must be trained in the arts of the labyrinth. How many people could that be?”

  “And most are in this room,” said Ariadne, “save for Stella.” She raised her eyebrows at the Lord of the Faerie.

  “Stella is in the Faerie,” he said. “She rarely enters the mortal world now. Besides, I don’t think she has enough interest in the Troy Game, and what may or may not destroy it, to go to these elaborate lengths. It isn’t Stella.”

  “Could it be a member of the Faerie?” Jack asked the Lord of the Faerie, glancing at Noah to include her in the question. “Or some faerie spirit of the land? So ancient and unknowable we may not be aware of it?”

  “It is possible,” said the Lord of the Faerie. “The gods know enough fey spirits and beings have walked through this land over the millennia. I don’t know them all—there are just too many shadows in the night. Noah?”

  “I think it is likely,” she said. “I mean, who else?”

  “But whoever it is must be trained in the labyrinth,” Silvius said. “Doesn’t that cut out any faerie spirit of the land?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Noah. “The land and the Troy Game conducted an alliance thousands of years ago, and the labyrinth has been burrowing deep into the earth since Brutus and Genvissa first constructed it. Some of the stranger and older faerie spirits may well have learned enough from the labyrinth to become skilled in its ways.”

  Jack turned a little so he could look directly at Grace. “Grace?”

  She chewed her lip, and Jack could see indecision and doubt in her eyes.

  “Perhaps,” she said, and Jack grinned. Grace seriously doubted any of this but was trying to be polite.

  “No,” he said. “Not ‘perhaps’. What do you think? What do you feel? Catling? Some ancient faerie spirit we’ve all missed? Something else?”

  Grace shifted a little on her seat. “Everything inside me screams Catling, but I doubt myself because, as you said, Jack, it just doesn’t make sense for her to have done this. I’m also afraid that because of the hex that binds me to her, every time something goes bump in the night I automatically ascribe it to Catling.” She gave a small shrug and a self-effacing smile. “Catling is my very own personal bogeyman.”

  “A member of the Faerie, then?” Jack said.

  Grace thought about it. “I don’t know enough about the Faerie to be able to say either yea or nay, Jack. Mother? What about the Sidlesaghes? Might they know?”

  “Oh, moon and stars!” Noah said. “Why didn’t I think of that? Yes, they might know. They’ve spent millennia literally being a part of the land. They can certainly still teach me things I never knew. I’ll ask Long Tom. If he doesn’t know who this is, then he can investigate.”

  “Good,” said the Lord of the Faerie. “Noah can ask Long Tom, and maybe he can sort out this mystery. Jack, Grace, what do you make of the bomb? What were you shown, and why?”

  “We were shown the vulnerability of the Troy Game,” said Jack. “We were shown that it can be destroyed.”

  “That shadow must be a weakness,” said Noah.

  “I’m not sure,” Grace said slowly. “The path of the bomb was changed by the shadow that hangs over London. The bomb was directed. I don’t know if that actually indicates a weakness on Catling’s part. Perhaps…”

  “Perhaps?” said Jack.

  “Perhaps we were being shown a weapon,” said Grace.

  “The bomb?” said the Lord of the Faerie.

  “No,” said Grace, “the shadow itself.”

  There was a short silence as people thought about it.

  “Grace,” said Noah finally, �
�what do you mean?”

  “What if…what if the shadow is not a shadow, or a reflection, or a message. What if it is a weapon?”

  Jack sat back, studying Grace. A weapon? Was it feasible? “The only kind of weapon capable of affecting the Troy Game would be…”

  He drifted off, his mind racing. What kind of weapon could be effective against the Troy Game? “It would need to be of the Game itself,” he finished, “of the labyrinth. Born of the labyrinth.”

  Ariadne, who had been silent until now, leaned forward. “You’re right, Jack. Only something of the Troy Game could be used against the Troy Game.”

  “What do you mean?” said the Lord of the Faerie.

  Ariadne considered for a moment, trying to clarify things in her own mind before she tried to explain them to the Lord of the Faerie. “The Troy Game was constructed to protect. In that purpose it has succeeded magnificently, too magnificently. Rather than protecting London, it protects itself. Moreover, the Game protects by absorbing evil…anything sent against it would merely be absorbed. To be destroyed, the Troy Game must be destroyed from within, if you like. By something of the Game itself.”

  “Catling has created the weapon of her own destruction?” Silvius said, incredulous.

  Ariadne sighed. “I don’t know, Silvius. I was just theorising.”

  Jack laid a hand on her shoulder in support. “I need some sleep. This is too confusing for my addled mind. As I understand it, all that has been suggested is that some ‘being’, perhaps a member of the Faerie, is trying to show Grace and me something. This something may be a weakness in the Troy Game…or perhaps it is a weapon to be used against the Troy Game. But if it is a weapon, then it must firstly have been constructed of the Troy Game itself…ah! I can’t figure it.”

  “I hope Long Tom has some answers,” Noah said quietly.

  “Me too,” said Grace after a moment.

  Catling could hardly believe Jack and Grace had dropped a bomb on her. She couldn’t decide whether to succumb to incandescent rage or icy dread.

  Why was Jack so confident he thought he could attack her so blatantly?