She crept out of the apartments without waking Mallory and Sophie and made her way into the dark jumble of stinking streets. Figures flickered in and out of the shadows, cut-throats and cut-purses, predators of all kinds. They circled Caitlin from a distance, watching from alleys and doorways, following then retreating.
Caitlin was oblivious. The chatter in her head was the sound of heavy machinery. Eventually, she gripped her temples and shook herself furiously, screaming, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’
The figures all around paused in their secret machinations, then slowly melted into the darkness.
The sudden silence inside her mind was like the sea at night. Caitlin almost felt like crying. ‘Now,’ she said firmly, ‘tell me where I need to go.’
The Hunter’s Moon was an inn of gothic proportions, with overhanging eaves and oddly pitched roofs, turrets and gargoyles. Through the diamond-pane windows, candlelight glimmered. It appeared to be the most welcoming place in the entire city.
Within, though, the mood was subdued. Small groups of drinkers indulged in whispered conversations, eyes flickering towards Caitlin before quickly moving away, scared and desperate. The clientele was a bizarre collection of grotesques, with horns and wings, scales and cloven hooves and hair that moved of its own accord. Caitlin saw none of the golden-skinned Tuatha De Danann, however.
‘Tell me where,’ she snapped out loud. The drinkers closed the ranks of their little groups for fear she would join them.
She found Jerzy in one of the tiny rooms in the rabbit-warren rear of the inn. He sat at a table with an unnaturally tall, thin man dressed in black with a stovepipe hat that appeared to be permanently on the brink of falling off. Two tankards of ale sat before them.
‘The universe is going to hell and you’re sitting here having a drink,’ she said, not unkindly.
Jerzy jumped up, almost knocking over the table. His drinking partner snatched up the beer before it was spilled, adding flamboyantly, ‘Dear me! Almost a catastrophe!’
‘I was only catching up with an old friend,’ Jerzy protested.
‘It’s all right, Jerzy.’ Caitlin ruffled his green hair. ‘Never forget to snatch the little moments of pleasure in the middle of all the misery.’
Jerzy gave her a puzzled look. ‘Mistress Caitlin? Forgive me, but you seem … changed?’
‘Waking up from a bad dream does that. Who is this?’ She nodded towards Jerzy’s drinking partner.
Shadow John, said Brigid in her head.
‘Shadow John,’ said Jerzy.
Unfurling his long frame, Shadow John bowed deeply, catching and tipping his hat in the process. ‘I must say, it is a pleasure to meet a Sister of Dragons,’ he said, beaming. ‘I have been blessed to meet your kind before, and it is always a source of wonder.’
‘Thank you.’ Caitlin pulled up a stool. Shadow John hastily sought out the barman and returned with a goblet of red wine.
‘Why is everyone here so scared?’ she asked.
Shadow John flinched and looked away.
‘No one here will say,’ Jerzy explained. ‘I have asked, but they are all sworn to secrecy. Even I, who was once one of them, am excluded.’
‘Spies are everywhere,’ Shadow John said through a fixed grin.
‘You can talk to me,’ Caitlin said sweetly. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’
Only us, Amy, Brigid and Briony said together.
Shadow John shook his head slowly, barely able to form the words: ‘All is seen and heard.’
‘By whom? The Enemy has infiltrated the court?’
But Shadow John would say no more.
‘All right, those are questions for another time,’ Caitlin continued. ‘What I need to know now is, where is the Morrigan?’
Shadow John cried out and ran from the room.
A gust of wind down the chimney made the fire roar. ‘I don’t think we’re safe here at all,’ Caitlin said.
9
‘Are you sure we should be doing this, master?’ Jerzy’s chalk-white face was hidden in the folds of his sodden cowl as he bowed his head against the torrential rain. The white horse he had borrowed from Niamh’s stables made its way slowly through the treacly mud of the lane. ‘This land is dangerous now. We are at risk of attack anywhere outside the court’s walls.’
The rain reminded Mallory of trekking on horseback across Salisbury Plain. It had been a similarly difficult time with threats on every side, yet the simple fact that he could recall it filled him with elation. His love-making with Sophie the previous night had unleashed a flood of memories, and it was a struggle to assimilate them into the life he thought he had. It had affected Sophie the same way. Unsettled, she’d been sad to see him go, but they both knew there was no choice in the matter.
‘I’d be an idiot to be sure about anything in these times,’ he said, ‘but I do know we’re going to need all the help we can get.’
‘There are swords in the court-’
‘Not like this one. There are three great swords of Existence, filled with the power of the Pendragon Spirit. This one is Llyrwyn. I carried it for a while before the Void took everything away from me. Church has another of the swords, Caledfwlch. And it sounds like that bastard Veitch has the third, only somewhere down the line that one has become corrupted.’
‘But you don’t know where the sword is now. It was lost when the Devourer of All Things made its changes.’
‘I’m making an educated guess. The sword had a keeper. I’m betting she found it and brought it back here until it was needed again.’
The landscape was suffused with rain, dripping from the trees, pooling in the meadows where the grass glistened a damp October green, spattering off the brown hedgerows. They came over a ridge to find the Court of Peaceful Days, still and brooding. The martial banners hung limply and the gates were shattered. The once well-tended grounds were overgrown with long grass and willow herb pressing hard against the sprawling low buildings. An oppressive air of desolation lay upon it.
‘The Enemy must have struck!’ Jerzy whined. ‘Oh, how this court has fallen! Once it rang with war drums and the clash of metal, with songs for the lives given to battle for the sake of glory and honour. But then its forces were decimated in the war with the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders and a great sadness fell upon the place. And now this!’
‘The sword might still be here,’ Mallory said. ‘Let’s go.’
No birds sang as they made their way through the gates to the great front door, which hung open, unattended; the only sound was the constant hammering of the rain on the buildings.
They tethered their horses and Mallory led the way into the atrium. It was cold and silent. Jerzy made intermittent whimpering noises until Mallory glared at him to stop.
They passed through room after room, all deserted. In some, they found an upturned table or chair, occasional shattered glass, enough to hint at trouble, but nothing that indicated an invasion by overwhelming force.
‘I do not understand,’ Jerzy whispered. ‘Queen Rhiannon’s warriors had renounced violence, but they still would have defended the court with their lives.’
‘Maybe they were surprised.’ Even as Mallory said it, it didn’t ring true.
Eventually they came to the iron-studded oaken doors of the great hall. They had been sealed shut with chains, and warning sigils were scrawled all over them. The carcass of a gutted dog lay before it, now just fur and bone.
‘Can you read those?’ Mallory nodded towards the sigils.
Jerzy cowered. ‘They are marks of great power, warning of destruction to anyone who crosses the barrier to this room.’
‘Looks like this is where we need to go.’
Jerzy moaned, but Mallory was already in search of the armoury. In the dripping darkness of a stone sub-cellar, he located several barrels of gunpowder. He forced Jerzy to help him carry two barrels to the door of the great hall, leaving a trail of the black powder along the corridor.