The Tower of Bones Read online

  The Witch tossed her acolyte’s eye into the pit. Wretched servant! Because of your carelessness, the Beast must be fed an alternative diet. We will feed it one in ten of your acolytes. In the meantime, we will punish this grub in a manner that pleases us.

  ‘Mistress – let me lash her to an inch of her life.’

  Kill it and you will feed the Beast.

  ‘No – Mistress! I am ever careful to inflict pain without lasting wound. Yet even such wounds as I inflict heal too fast. There is a power about this one. I know not what. Yet it is as if some guardian …’

  Faltana raised her whip, as if to demonstrate, but a sweeping tentacle struck the chief succubus, felling her to the floor.

  A guardian, you say?

  Another tentacle rose to sniff at Kate’s brow, then slid down over her body, sniffing all the while, until it came to her right hand, where the flickering crystal matrix was still faintly visible.

  Here is its comfort!

  ‘Then let me cut off its hand.’

  Stupid servant! Thus is it communicating with the bearer of lightning. We wish this communication to continue.

  ‘But Mighty One – I have sensed such cunning. A plea, perhaps, to some additional source?’

  Olc shrieked: What source?

  ‘Please do not be angry with me, Mistress. I only wish to serve.’

  There was a prickling silence, in which the creeping tentacles appeared to pulsate, as if driven by some invisible heart. The clatter of the jaws rose to a rapid crescendo. We sense a presence! Ach -the Old One! She would not dare to enter here!

  But the Witch fell silent again, as if deeply thoughtful.

  Perhaps the Earthspawn is more dangerous than we imagined? Yet we must not kill it immediately. Instead we must discover a way to use it to our advantage.

  ‘Let me teach it a lesson.’

  A lesson, yes. But not your way. It is a weakly thing, little more than skin and bone. There is another pain, a pain of the spirit, yet one that would provide no escape through death.

  ‘What is your wish, Mistress?’

  Put it to silence in the bowels of nowhere – where there is nothing to be heard or seen, or felt – where it will survive long enough to serve our will, yet where there is but hunger and deprivation to torment the senses.

  The Council-in-Exile

  As evening fell on the following day the clanging of a great bronze bell pealed out from some source deep in the old city, echoing far and wide through the streets of Carfon and carrying over the choppy waters of the estuary. It was the signal Milish had been waiting for, the summons for Alan to appear before a plenary session of the Council-in-Exile. After the tiresome week of waiting Alan now felt that he had had little time to prepare himself. The Council-in-Exile, as he understood it, was drawn exclusively from some kind of nun-like order, sworn to silence when it came to outsiders. In the past they had been ruled by the reigning High Architect, but since the martyrdom of Ussha De Danaan that role had been served by a Pretender-in-Waiting. As such the summons of an outsider to their presence was an extreme rarity, and such a summons to a male – and an alien male at that – was unparalleled.

  As the dipping sun inflamed the western horizon a shallow-keeled skiff emerged from the shadow of the Water Gate. Alan watched its progress, illuminated by a single lantern in the prow, and sculled by half a dozen blackcowled figures whose synchronised rhythm dipped and beat the fiery waves. The omnipresent offshore breeze had strengthened to a squall, making it difficult for the rowers as they skirted the great shadow of the Temple Ship in mid-estuary to head for where Alan stood, in the company of Milish and the dwarf mage, at the very lap of the tide. Given the nature of their destination, Milish had dressed more frugally than was usual for the Ambassador. A simple cape of black wool overhung an ankle-length dress of silvertrimmed grey.

  Alan continued to observe the Ambassador, sensing an unusual level of inner tension. ‘Is something worrying you, Milish?’

  Milish drew him a few yards aside and whispered urgently: ‘If I might speak in confidence?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘In our haste to discover you, after word began to spread of your arrival in Tír, there was no opportunity for counsel between the Kyra’s mother-sister and this daughter-sister. During the maturation of a Kyra, time is put aside for frequent counsel. It allows the transfer, from mature to immature, of key experience – the confirmation of leadership and power. With the Kyra’s death, far separated from the daughter-sister, the opportunity for such counsel was lost. The young Kyra lacks that peerless matrilineage of memories, of leadership in battles beyond counting, the wisdom and judgement of hundreds of Kyras extending back thousands of years.’

  Alan considered the implications of what Milish had said as the shallow-keeled boat swept up closer to the beach. When he spoke again, he did so softly, still out of earshot of Qwenqwo. ‘I hope the young Kyra realises how lucky she is to have you as her adviser.’

  Milish turned her gaze riverwards, as if examining the boat’s determined progress through the rising dark. With a wave of his hand, Alan bade Qwenqwo to rejoin them. He addressed them both as several cowled and caped figures slid over the gunwales of the boat and, wading to above their knees in the swirling surf, hauled its prow as close to the sand as they could manoeuvre.

  ‘What strategy should I adopt with the Council?’

  Milish spoke urgently. ‘Discover one high-ranking friend among them, then speak always as if addressing this one friend!’

  ‘If, on the contrary, you would take my advice,’ Qwenqwo added with equal urgency, ‘you should trust none of them – least of all the one among them who takes pains to befriend you!’

  Alan smiled, then turned to hug his friend, Mo, who was still recovering from the spiritual trauma she had suffered at the Battle of Ossierel. She looked wan and vulnerable, her dark hair blustering about her delicate features in the heightening wind. Mind-to-mind he caught her whisper.

  I dreamed about Mark, last night. I sense that he is still here with us.

  Alan hesitated, taken aback by the thought. He took Mo’s premonitions very seriously. He wanted to know more but now was not the time.

  Hey, Mo – I’ll be back before you have time to miss me!

  Take care of yourself, Alan.

  His eyes found Siam, Chief of the Olhyiu, whose bravery and leadership had brought them through so many dangers along the course of the Snowmelt River. Siam nodded in understanding. Alan was relieved see that Mo was already cradled by the protective arm of Siam’s very capable wife, Kehloke.

  The cowled rowers brought the prow round to face the crossing, allowing Alan and Milish to clamber aboard the stern, and they were soon receding from the waving arms of their friends, who were swallowed up by the dark, the squall whipping up a salt-laden mist that soaked the passengers’ clothes and faces. Alan had to grab the starboard rail to steady himself against the pitching and tossing, before settling to the rhythm and sway of the boat’s movements, all the while attempting to stop himself falling headlong against his seated companion.

  As the boat splashed its way through the deeply recessed arch of the Water Gate, with its intricate carvings set deep into the weathered stones, Alan was unprepared for the maze that now enfolded them. He had expected city streets, roads and squares. Instead he discovered that the Old City was a labyrinth of tunnels carved out of solid rock, honeycombed with openings into still darker tunnels.

  In such claustrophobic surroundings he felt increasingly uncomfortable with the silence of the hooded women. At the same time the proximity of great power caused his oraculum to glow so brightly that it cast a rubicund beacon over the skiff, and would have been enough in itself to illuminate the way had there not been torches burning in sconces at regular intervals.

  ‘Wow! How old is this place, Milish?’

  ‘Older, I’m sure, than any other ecclesiastical buildings in all of Monisle. Its written history stretches to more than five mi
llennia, yet the sages believe that it is more ancient still. It guards its secrets well.’

  After a lengthy and twisting course within the tunnels they arrived at a jetty in a mildewed wall where a solitary figure, gowned in white, stood waiting for their arrival. Unlike the rowers she was uncowled and Alan saw that she was no more than twenty years old and of a dark complexion, with heavy eyelids, a pert nose and wide, full lips. Her eyebrows, like her scalp, were hairless. Her chestnut-coloured eyes assessed him curiously, but it was he who broke the silence.

  ‘My name is Alan Duval. My companion you already recognise, the Princess and Ambassador …’

  ‘Mage Lord, you need no introduction.’ The young woman interrupted him, bowing a little awkwardly as if unused to greeting strangers. ‘I am permitted to speak in order to be your guide.’

  She indicated where a door stood open onto an ascending spiral of steps. They seemed to climb endlessly, with more tunnels opening off the staircase at many levels, until finally they reached a small and narrow atrium. By now they must be high within the labyrinths of the Old City. With a gesture towards the single stone bench lit by a flickering sconce, their guide made it clear that they should wait for her return.

  Alan could barely contain his impatience, pacing around for a few moments before pausing in front of a narrow, unglazed slit window, through which, standing on tiptoes, he could catch a glimpse of the lamp-lit towers of Carfon.

  The return of their guide was heralded by the smell of incense. Cowling her head, she led them through a corridor with a worn stone floor, and through a chamber set with wooden benches and kneelers that was lit by candles and proved to be the source of the incense, and still further into a pentagonal room that was the anteroom to the assembly chamber. Here, she stood back, her head bowed before a tall, severe-looking woman garbed in an ankle-length gown of lime-green.

  ‘I am Aon.’

  The woman confronting Alan was perhaps in her early sixties. In assessing Alan, she made no effort to disguise her curiosity. Her gaze focused for several moments on his oraculum before finding his eyes, and once finding them, never leaving them.

  ‘I’m Alan Duval.’

  ‘Who, if the rumours be true, has entered this world from another – and who bears the Oraculum of the First Power of the most Holy Trídédana!’

  He gazed back at her, eye to eye, in silence.

  ‘I am informed that the Elector, Prince Ebrit, considers you naive, perhaps a dangerous idealist.’

  ‘I guess that in his world idealism might be another word for fanaticism. If that’s what the Elector thinks of me, I can see how it might make me appear dangerous.’ He let his words sink in a moment before shrugging.

  ‘It must be difficult in one so young to assume such power without being a little overwhelmed by it. I’m sure that the Princess Laása will also have explained our protocols. It’s unprecedented in the history of the High Council to allow a man to attend a plenary meeting of the Half Hundred. We are bound by strict rules. And the Princess Laása will be excluded from the meeting.’

  ‘Ma’am – Sister Aon, if that’s what I should call you – I’m asking you to let the Ambassador stay with me. This meeting is important for both our sakes, and without her advice I’m likely to offend you without intending to.’

  ‘There are those among us who think that the Ambassador, as you call her, should stand before our Court charged with profligate abuse of her role.’

  ‘Ma’am! If you want any cooperation from me you’re going to have to forget about any such trial. I regard the Ambassador as my friend.’

  ‘You speak wilfully. Yet greater forces may be at work than you realise.’

  Alan was rapidly running out of patience with diplomacy. ‘Sister Aon – I suspect you already know why I’m here.’

  ‘You seek the whereabouts of the portal.’

  ‘Will you show me where to find it?’

  Aon shook her head in vexation. ‘Perhaps the Ambassador should stay! But be advised that if you choose confrontation you will place your own life, and the lives of all who depend on you, in danger.’

  ‘Ma’am, thank you.’

  Aon turned to Milish. ‘Have you warned him against such foolishness?’

  Alan spoke for Milish. ‘The Ambassador has repeatedly warned me, much as you have. But I have no choice but to confront the Fáil!’

  Sister Aon stared at Alan for several moments, as if questioning his sanity. But the look of determination on his face persuaded her. ‘Very well! But you will not be allowed to use your power to probe minds in this chamber. And you will both be excluded from our subsequent deliberations.’

  So saying, she led Alan and Milish into a semicircular chamber where the remaining forty-nine members, all wearing gowns of lime-green, were seated in tiered rows. Aon took her place next to a very old woman who sat on an elevated rostrum at the centre of the semicircle, and here the Pretender to High Architect accepted a small sceptre that she tapped just once on the dark oak bench before her.

  ‘Members of the Half Hundred! The Mage Lord, Alan Duval, together with the Princess of Essyne Xhosa, beg audience. Grave times beset us. The Mage Lord wishes to discover the portal once resident at Ossierel, but brought here for safe keeping. What are we to make of such a request?

  ‘None among us, under any normal circumstances, would sanction a confrontation of the power beyond that portal. We would assume that it would lead to the destruction of this ancient sanctuary, even Carfon itself. Yet these are not ordinary circumstances and the Mage Lord is no ordinary mortal. In his brow he bears the Oraculum of the First Power of the Most Holy Trídédana.’

  Alan’s eyes moved back to the old woman, recognising the bent and twisted figure that had warned him from the assembled crowds as the Temple Ship had arrived into the harbour. That same figure had warned him that his quest here might prove to be a poisoned chalice. As then, a thrill of alarm pulsed in his oraculum.

  But what did it mean?

  Sister Aon continued to address the council. ‘We recognise that the golden age of Ossierel is past. A new political reality prevails. The Kyra of the Shee is but across the water. Daily her forces gather. The Elector, Ebrit, supported by the High Families, raises a mighty force of arms in the city’s defence. Two armies not altogether allied to each other now ring this chamber, while others more malignant regard our sacred charge with avid eyes.

  ‘And now,’ she turned to face Alan directly, ‘this stranger demands audience to demand access to the portal. If I understand him, he offers commonality of purpose to this Council in return for our assistance. Thus do we face the gravest dilemma since the fall of Ossierel. Should we assist him in this seemingly foolish enterprise – or should we refuse? The question is now open to debate.’

  Several voices called out at once: ‘Then let him speak.’

  With a face like stone, Sister Aon waved Alan to the floor in front of her rostrum. ‘Face the assembly, if you will. No doubt you will speak as frankly to them as you already have to me.’

  Alan stood erect, forcing himself to relax the fists that had been clenched by his sides. ‘Sisters – if that is what I’m supposed to call you – you can see I’m no kind of diplomat. I speak my mind. I know what some of you think about the last High Architect, Ussha De Danaan. I understand why you might hate her. She did nothing to save Ossierel. Through the powers of the Mage of Dreams I was taken back to Ossierel and I spoke to Ussha De Danaan as she was dying.’

  Alan paused to allow the shock of his words to run its course among them. ‘You must be wondering, just as I did, why she brought me and my friends there to meet her. From what I gathered she didn’t do it through madness, despair, or through cowardice or anything like that. She had some kind of a plan.’

  The chamber was filled with murmuring.

  ‘In the name of the Most Holy— why you?’

  ‘As far as I can see, her bringing us here to your world was part of that plan. Don’t expect me to explain be
cause, frankly, I don’t understand it myself. All I can tell you is that she called us “chosen”. Why, or how, we happened to be chosen, I have no idea. But she gave us a clue. The ultimate cause of it all, the evil that’s wrecking your world, involves the Fáil. Your enemy, the Tyrant of the Wastelands, has captured a portal and he is actively corrupting its influence.’

  A stunned silence filled the chamber.

  Alan spoke again, his words invading the silence. ‘I know you doubt her integrity. But I really believe that her heart, and purpose, were true.’

  A hiss of shock filled the chamber.

  ‘Why then’, demanded Aon, ‘should we believe a stranger when the wisest minds in the land have failed to understand these terrible portents?’

  ‘Ma’am, I don’t rightly know why. As an old woman once said to me, although she used different words, there are times when you have to trust to your heart and instinct. I must ask you also to trust your hearts and instincts.’

  ‘You speak eloquently, for all your lack of years, but eloquence is no persuasion. Too much is at stake here.’

  ‘Then will you allow the Ambassador to speak?’

  Sister Aon tapped the sceptre on the bench surface. ‘Should the Xhosa be allowed to address this meeting? On such a matter of high principle, I would suggest we take the opinion of the oldest and most experienced among us. Sister Hocht will decide.’

  All eyes turned to the old woman sitting on the rostrum beside Sister Aon, watching in silence as she took to her feet, leaning on an ancient staff of power. Her face, lifting with difficulty on her bent and withered neck, was as dry as parchment, stretched over the angular bones of her skull. Her eyes, deeply set within their shadowed orbits, were grey-ringed with age, yet they clearly held the respect of the entire chamber. The old woman gazed first at Alan and then at Milish. She lifted the staff of power and struck it sharply against the wooden floor of the rostrum. Then in a reedy voice she said: ‘Let the Princess of Laása speak.’