‘Master, are you not scared of bringing destruction upon your head?’ Jerzy asked as Mallory prepared to strike a flint.
‘Firstly, I’m not anybody’s master and you really need to stop calling me that. Secondly, I don’t think I’m coming out of this whole business in one piece so there’s no point being timid.’
‘You remind me of my good friend Church.’
‘Insult me, why don’t you. I’m a party guy. He’s got the world on his shoulders, and we all know what all work and no play lead to.’ Mallory struck the flint and the gunpowder fizzed into life.
They dashed around the corner before the deafening explosion sent a flare of heat that scorched the walls of the corridor. Smoke and stone dust clouded the air as they clambered over the rubble to where the doors had been. The rain now fell through a large hole in the roof, and part of the wall had been demolished.
The hall was dark and windowless. Mallory lit a torch and progressed cautiously into the gloom. Halfway across the hall, amidst the echoes of his footsteps, the torchlight illuminated something glowing at the far side.
Jerzy tugged at Mallory’s sleeve. ‘Master … good friend, let us be away now. I am scared.’
‘What is that?’ Mallory tried to pierce the enfolding dark. He continued to advance. The golden glow came and went as the torch flickered, and finally he realised it was one of the Tuatha De Danann.
‘Who’s there?’ he called out.
The figure made limited movements and a high-pitched whine that set his teeth on edge.
The torch finally revealed Rhiannon, the queen of the court, encased to her neck in an iron sheath, her arms pulled into a crucifix position by chains suspended from the ceiling. Hooks on wires kept her eyes permanently open. Her mouth had been sewn shut.
‘God, how long has she been like this?’ Mallory rushed forward to free her, but her whining increased insistently. As he struggled to release the iron sheath he saw why: tiny needles on the underside of the sheath dug deeper into her flesh with every attempt to remove it.
Jerzy fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face at the queen’s suffering. ‘What evil could do such a thing?’
‘We know what evil.’ Mallory looked into Rhiannon’s eyes briefly, but what he saw there was too much to bear. His gaze fell on a long iron box on a stone plinth nearby. A thin blue light leaked from it. As Mallory examined it, soothing whispers filled his head.
‘The sword’s in here,’ he said. But as he went to open the box, Rhiannon’s muffled cries rose up urgently. Mallory backed away. ‘Makes sense they’d booby trap it.’ He returned to Rhiannon. ‘There’s got to be a way to free her.’
‘Only the Enemy would make release cause more pain than imprisonment,’ Jerzy said.
Mallory forced himself to look into Rhiannon’s eyes again to let her know he would help. But she repeatedly rolled her eyes down and to the left. Mallory followed the direction she was indicating.
All he could see was a silver clasp at the shoulder of her dirty, torn dress; tentatively, he reached for it.
The clasp became fluid, turning into a silver egg that sprouted eight legs. Mallory snatched his hand back.
‘It is a Caraprix,’ Jerzy said. ‘All the gods have them. Companions, confidantes … they have a strange power all their own.’
‘She wants me to take it.’ Mallory hesitated, then held out his hand palm upwards. The silver spider scuttled onto it, throbbing with light and power, though cool to the touch. Mallory held it up to eye-level.
Before he could react, it leaped, the sharp, silvery legs clinging to his face as it forced his lips open, then his teeth. He gagged, tried to rip it out, but it was like mercury, sliding through his fingers into his mouth and down his throat. The bulk of it closing his airway brought panic. Clawing at his throat, he saw stars, and then felt a sharp stabbing pain. A second later he was unconscious.
But the darkness led instantly to light. Fractured images passed before him, a world seen through oil, with a silvery landscape and a silvery sky merging into one. Enormous creatures moved against the distant skyline and after a while Mallory realised they were Caraprix, but greater and more powerful than he would ever have believed. With the vision came the knowledge that he, and everyone, had misjudged them: not pets or parasites, companions or confidantes. They were greater than anything in the Fixed Lands or the Far Lands, greater perhaps than everything.
He heard a voice saying, ‘The closer things are to the heart of Existence, the more fluid they become.’
But then the image shifted, and in that dreamy vision he saw warriors dressed all in black with hoods over their heads. Flashes of perception: the warriors running through the Court of Peaceful Days; Rhiannon’s warriors falling beneath sword and axe; and then the warriors advancing towards him, and Mallory realising he was seeing the scene through Rhiannon’s eyes. Another flash. Frightening yet incomprehensible images, and then a slow, subtle revelation …
Mallory came round with a concerned Jerzy leaning over him and the Caraprix scuttling away from his mouth and back to Rhiannon.
‘We have to get at the sword. We can use that to free Rhiannon,’ he said.
‘How do you know these things?’
‘It told me.’ Mallory examined the box again. ‘Touch this the wrong way and it’ll release a blade that’ll take your hands off at the wrist.’
‘You could just blow it up with gunpowder,’ Jerzy said archly.
‘Sarcasm. Good. You’ll be one of us in no time. Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea except I know for a fact that there’s only one way into it.’
Mallory steeled himself and went over to Rhiannon. Of all the Tuatha De Danann, she was one of the most compassionate and it was a tragedy that she suffered so. The hope in her wide eyes made it even worse.
‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ he began. ‘The only way to free you without killing you is with the sword. And the only way to open the box is with your hand. That’s the trick of the trap. Here you both are, a few feet apart, yet it’s a puzzle that’s impossible to solve.’ He took a deep breath to hide the tremor in his voice. ‘Or nearly impossible.’
She was trying to read his face, but couldn’t see the answer.
‘I can open the box if I cut off one of your hands.’
Her eyes stretched wider than he would have thought possible. The whine in her throat grew high-pitched once again. He wanted it to stop.
‘We don’t have to worry about shock or blood loss killing you. Your kind are tougher than that. But the pain will be unbearable. No anaesthetic, nothing to dull it. It could scar your mind for ever.’ He fought to calm his pounding heart so that he didn’t make it worse for her. ‘Do you want me to proceed?’
Her eyes continued to scan his face, searching for another way, hoping against hope. Finally she signalled her agreement. A single tear trickled from the corner of one eye to the edge of her mouth where it moistened the dry stitches.
‘Left or right?’
She indicated her left.
Mallory nodded as dispassionately as he could and turned to talk quietly to Jerzy. ‘Bring me a boning knife from the kitchens.’
‘Good friend, are you sure you can do this?’ Jerzy whispered.
‘The sick thing is, I’ve done much worse than this in my life. I can’t afford to be pathetic. I have to do it for her.’
‘You spoke of the pain scarring her mind. But this act will scar your own mind.’
‘Just fetch the knife, Jerzy.’
Jerzy returned with a leather-bound box. He tripped and the glittering contents skidded across the flags, cruel blades all, with barbs and serrations and razor edges.
‘Cool move, Jerzy,’ Mallory muttered.
Jerzy frantically gathered up the knives and Mallory took them out of Rhiannon’s view. He selected the one he thought would be quickest and cleanest and hid it behind his back.