The Tower of Bones Read online

  ‘My late teacher called it “the Way”.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is it some sort of a guide? Aon told me there was no guide. Are you saying that she lied to me?’

  ‘She did not lie.’ Consternation entered her young face. ‘Sister Aon knows nothing of this. Only the De Danaan knew of it – and when she feared her coming death, she bequeathed it to Sister Hocht.’

  ‘Then this is some sort of guide?’

  ‘Mage Lord, I do not know. We have no time for delay. I have given you the Way. But I warn you also, as my teacher warned me, that the Way forks, each fork leading to one of the two immensities, one to Life as the other to Death.’ Her young face clouded over, as if panic was close to making her flee. ‘Time is precious. You stand on the very threshold of the portal.’

  Alan studied the sphere again, turning it over in his hands so he could search its interior from different angles. There was movement of some sort within it. The movement didn’t seem random, more like geometric shapes. As he watched, a line became a square, the square folded to a triangle and the triangle began to multiply until it filled the sphere with a maze of polyhedrons. Immediately, it all cleared and was replaced by the central pulsating pinpoint of light again.

  ‘What are you implying? Is there some kind of a time limit?’

  ‘Time is a forfeit. If your time elapses and you have not chosen, then you will most certainly die.’

  In the distance he heard the sound of shuffling feet: the Sisterhood were searching for him.

  ‘Please hurry!’ Her face lifted, and her eyes, reflecting the sphere in two startling pinpoints of light, looked increasingly panicky. ‘The Way tests more than you might imagine.’ She struck the centre of her chest with a small clenched fist. ‘It will search the heart and spirit … to discover the True Believer. But it will also punish any sign of falsehood or weakness.’

  ‘What the heck …?’

  ‘I regret that I know no more.’ Her eyes widened in alarm as the footsteps approaching the chamber grew louder. Alan heard the murmuring of many voices. ‘You must hurry. I can only tell you what my teacher told me. It discovers the true nature of one who would enter.’ Her eyes beseeched him. ‘I must go – before Aon discovers that I have betrayed the Sisterhood.’

  She turned to flee. ‘Please, do nothing until I have left the chamber. I am not strong. I would not survive.’ Her hand lifted briefly, and round her wrist he saw a bracelet of smoothest ebony. Engraved into its surface, in glowing silver, was a symbol, the triple infinity – the Tyrant’s emblem.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Goodbye, my sweet!’

  Her lips parted to show fanged canines, white as ivory and sharp as a serpent’s.

  ‘Remember,’ she crooned, ‘there is no going back. The Way now controls you. Release it and you will die. Engage with it and you will be faced with the immensities. In this at least I did not lie.’

  Too late, Alan recalled the warning of his friend, Qwenqwo: to trust no one, least of all somebody who pretended to be his friend. He had allowed his emotions to lead him. And the succubus was gone, faded into the dark.

  The lights of many candles illuminated the hidden doorway, flowing into and filling the chamber. A group of perhaps a dozen cowled figures had formed a circle around him. Traitors, he now guessed, among the Half Hundred of the Sisterhood. There they paused, their hoods concealing their faces, every left hand stretched out against him, with palm upraised. As one they chanted a softly melodic hymn. Alan ignored them, closing his fist about the crystal sphere. He had come here to find the portal – and still, despite the betrayal and the dangers it had to imply, he had no option now but to take his chances. There was something strange about the sphere, its weight and feel, something beyond the crystal shape and substance.

  Could he risk hurling the crystal at the stone wall? His instincts told him that would be a mistake. Mark had once dashed a crystal of power against a wall and it had provoked terrible consequences. Instead Alan now pressed it close against his oraculum. Immediately the pinpoint of light became bright as the sun, flooding the chamber through the substance of his fingers. It was pulsating fiercely in synchrony with his heartbeat. The cowled figures continued their chanting.

  The sense of power about him escalated. But what did it mean? He recalled the light he had once seen in the forest – the spirit guide that had spoken to him as Valéra lay dying. Like the succubus it had also talked about the True Believer. He recalled his own voice, filled with anguish and frustration, demanding answers from the spirit guide: ‘Where is this place?’

  It is all places and all times and therefore nowhere and timeless. To some it does not exist while to others it is the only reason for existing. But take care – for those of good heart are not the only True Believers.

  Oh, man! He was back among the riddles.

  The circle of figures had gathered more closely about him. Their chanting was louder. He sensed their hatred of him, but also their fear of him, or maybe of what it was that he was doing.

  He turned his attention back onto the crystal. His oraculum burst into a cataract of bright red flame. Immediately the focus shifted from the sphere to the absolute dead centre of the chamber, hovering in mid-air as a pulsating source of light and power. In its depths he perceived a wonderful motion, complex beyond easy meaning, as if worlds swirled and beckoned. Then it dissolved into an extraordinary kaleidoscope of waves and arabesques filling his senses before condensing once more to become a new focus of light immediately beneath his feet.

  Alan stared down to see that he was not standing on a paved floor as he had imagined, but within a pentagon of polished quartz. The light expanded to enclose his body, so he became the dead centre.

  A sense of panic grew in him, though he did his best to resist it. Through the oraculum he sensed change, powerful and terrifying. The sense of power, of danger, was escalating at a furious rate. He had to assume that this was the portal.

  ‘Shit!’

  What had the succubus said? Had any of her words been true?

  He had only moments to consider this. She had led him here – and here, he had no doubt, was the test she had talked about. Did she hope that he would die in the act of confrontation? Or did she hope he would pass the test and confront … confront what exactly?

  He sensed that what she had told him had been at least partially true. There was a safe way – a way of life. And there was another way – a way of death. The portal had registered his presence. The sands were running through the hourglass, only it might not be an hourglass at all, it might be a minute glass, or a glass that contained the remaining seconds of his life.

  While he was thinking, the light condensed once more to a pinpoint, where it paused for an instant before expanding to a glowing line. A perfect line, narrow as a razor-blade, which ran perpendicularly through the centre of the pentagon on the floor. Then the line retracted to the pinpoint again before reforming as a horizontal line. Again and again, it traced out lines, following the same perfect angles, until the centre was connected to five different points in space, all etched in brilliant white light. Then they all retracted in one instant to become the pinpoint focus again. This held, for a heartbeat. Suddenly it expanded into a blinding flare and when this faded he found himself standing at the centre of a glowing sphere.

  The sense of danger was awesome. This was the confrontation. A question was being asked of him …

  A riddle?

  The muscles of his back were freezing solid, as if ice had congealed deep within their fibres. He dropped the crystal, which was now inert. The confrontation was set: he faced the two immensities. Get it right and he would live; get it wrong and he was dead.

  The Riddle of the Way

  Mo Grimstone sat in the sand, the tide lapping around her bare feet and her tilted face catching the light of the newly risen moon. Her eyes closed, she was nevertheless aware of the approach of the dwarf mage, who observed her for a moment or two before
settling down in the cool damp sand beside her. He embraced her slender shoulders with a burly arm, the warded edges of his bronze battleaxe glimmering in the pallid light, and his aged legs shuffling for a comfortable position, crossed at the ankles.

  Mo blinked repeatedly, as if needing time to fully come to. Her brow furrowed, as if deeply troubled, before she spoke:

  ‘Milish has come back without Alan. She’s frantic with worry about him.’

  Qwenqwo’s face was equally troubled. ‘You sense some danger in particular?’

  Tears glistened in Mo’s eyes. ‘I sense what Alan senses. That Kate is hurt – and in terrible danger.’

  The dwarf mage nodded, following Mo’s gaze out into the central channel, where the Temple Ship lay unusually still, the great manta ray shape vaguely discernible, holding its position without anchor. In the short time since their arrival in Carfon a great army of Shee had arrived to take up occupation of the hitherto quiet estuary, under the command of the new Kyra. There must be thousands here already, and more arriving by the day. Mo guessed that it would be an uncomfortable place for a lone Fir Bolg to find himself, and his presence had certainly excited curiosity among the arriving warriors.

  ‘I have been meaning to ask you something, though I hesitate to touch upon it. I detect something curious about you, Mo.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Four friends come to Tír from another world. Alan is granted the First Power, the power of the land. Your brother, Mark, discovers, at great cost to himself, the Third Power – the power of death. And Kate would have had bestowed on her the Second Power, the power of new life, and healing, had she not been taken from us. You alone are denied such a gift. And yet you are clearly an important member of the company of friends. Is that not curious?’

  Mo’s gaze turned from the Temple Ship and her tearfilled eyes held those of the dwarf mage, their emerald green transformed to grey by the moonlight amid the dark pools beneath his heavy brows.

  It was Qwenqwo who broke the contact, his voice falling to a gentle whisper. ‘Aye, my young friend! And the more I consider you, the more do I wonder.’

  ‘What do you wonder?’

  ‘At Ossierel you confronted a Legun incarnate. That confrontation almost destroyed you, but the hurt was in spirit rather than in the flesh. Even so, Alan could not revive you, not even with the full power of his oraculum. It required the intervention of a goddess to do so, a goddess called down upon you by a communion of powers between Alan and the mystical craft yonder. And now see – have you not walked through soft sand to find this spot, yet where are the marks to prove it? Even in the light of moon and stars, my footprints, as you can see, are clear. Yours, wherever you walked on this sand, reveal no more impression than the alighting of a butterfly.’

  Mo hesitated, not caring to look at the sand. She knew full well why her body was without weight. It had been the result of one of her wishes when trapped in the Preceptor’s pit at the battle zone of the rapids on the Snowmelt River, a wish granted to her by her guardian, Granny Dew. Nevertheless, she was startled by Qwenqwo’s words. It was the first time anybody had told her about how she was revived at Ossierel. But she had no more understanding of what happened there than did Qwenqwo.

  She sighed. ‘I’m frightened.’

  ‘And I am fearful for you.’ The Fir Bolg warrior put his arm about her shoulders again. ‘I couldn’t help but notice. You’ve changed much in the short time we have been here on the shore. I can no longer address you as little Mo. You are fast becoming the young woman.’

  Mo’s eyes turned back to the choppy water. It was true that her menstrual cycle had begun. She was growing very rapidly – inches it seemed in little more than a week. The changes in her body disturbed her, all the more so since she seemed to have no control over them. It was happening so quickly, much faster than she had been led to expect back on Earth. It was as if this world had changed her – was still changing her – as it was changing all four friends. She saw it, felt it, feared it, happening from day to day, even from moment to moment. She had noticed the same in Alan, who was only a few inches off being as tall as his beanpole grandfather, Padraig. He was shaving regularly, with a permanent shadow over his cheeks and chin. Was it possible that time passed more quickly on Tír than on Earth, so much so that a year here might be equivalent to two or even more years on Earth? The thought intrigued her, for it suggested that Alan was now well past sixteen years old and her adoptive brother, Mark, had he been here in the flesh, would have been approaching seventeen. Becoming a man.

  She wiped the welling tears away with the back of her right hand. ‘I – I muh-miss my brother, Mark. I wish he was here with me.’

  Her fear had brought back a trace of the old stutter, the burden that had been lifted from her shoulders by another of those three wishes granted by Granny Dew. It made her think of the powerful old woman who had helped her so much – was helping her still, like a protective shadow.

  Mo reached up to pat the protective hand of the dwarf mage, where it rested lightly on her shoulder. ‘You are my friend, Qwenqwo.’

  ‘It comforts my gnarled old heart to hear you say so.’

  ‘You may go ahead and ask your question.’

  ‘I do indeed have a particular question. How is it that, although you alone were denied a crystal of power, yet it appears to matter little, for already you appear to possess power enough within you?’

  Mo smiled wanly, but she didn’t answer his question. How astonished Qwenqwo would be to discover her secret. That her name was not Maureen Grimstone, but Mira. Mira was her secret name, her real name – the name given to her by her birth mother. But there was something dangerous in the evocation of her real name and she was only allowed to speak it when the occasion demanded. She had spoken her true name only once, when Alan’s life had been in danger during the battle with the Legun incarnate at Ossierel. Alan had never mentioned it since. Maybe he had forgotten about it in all the confusion and horror? Whatever his reason, it was a good thing he had kept quiet about it, for the only time she had spoken it, it seemed to have changed her in some mysterious and terrifying way. Alan had saved her. He had somehow appealed to the Temple Ship. That much she had already been told by Milish – but what Qwenqwo had just added, that she could not be saved by Alan’s oraculum, that between them he and the Temple Ship had … It seemed altogether too disturbing to think about.

  ‘Tell me, Qwenqwo, is it true that the Temple Ship is able to think – to feel?’

  ‘The Mage Lord says so. And I believe him.’

  She forced her reluctant mind to consider it again. When her spirit had been ravaged by the Legun, Alan had called on the help of the Temple Ship to save her. And now, the very thought that the Temple Ship could think and feel! It didn’t surprise her as much as it should, perhaps, because she had sensed a presence in the Ship from the time at the frozen lake when they had needed to escape from the Storm Wolves.

  Qwenqwo squeezed her shoulder. ‘Is it the Ship that has called you here? Was it the Ship that directed you here to the water’s edge?’

  She nodded, a thrill of awe running through her. ‘Qwenqwo – I need to know. You told us a tale, on the river journey, that the Temple Ship might once have been the Ark of the Arinn. Is this true?

  ‘I cannot say it is true. Merely that the legends have it so.’

  ‘I – I sense it is calling me. I feel that it is trying to tell me something.’

  ‘The Ship speaks to you?’

  ‘Not in words, but in feelings.’

  He followed her gaze to where the Ship, a hundred yards broad from wingtip to wingtip, glowed with some inner, lambent source of energy.

  ‘What does it say to you?’

  ‘I sense foreboding.’ Mo shuddered. ‘Qwenqwo, I think – I feel – that it is calling me. I think I should go out to it. Please, will you take me to the Temple Ship?’

  Qwenqwo’s face grew pensive. ‘I sense nothing of the kind, though I too am consum
ed with foreboding.’

  ‘Maybe it’s calling you too. I see you in my mind, when it calls me. I sense that it is also calling on the Mage of Dreams.’

  ‘My friend – recall, I beg of you, what happened when Alan demanded my help – when he insisted I take him back into the landscape of dreams!’

  Mo remembered the dying of the High Architect at Ossierel. How Kate had not awoken from the experience.

  He added, ‘The New Kyra will forbid it.’

  ‘That’s why we cannot tell her.’ Mo’s voice was little above a whisper: ‘I know how wrong it sounds. But I sense that the Ship is insisting I go out to it. It’s calling me, urgently, because Alan is in danger.’

  The dwarf mage released Mo from the crook of his arm. He confronted her, gazing deeply into her eyes, then shook his head with an almighty frown. ‘Very well – if you so trust your senses we must do their bidding. Then let us make haste. Before the others realise what we have in mind.’

  Alan retraced the riddle in his mind. A point had become a vertical line. Then it reverted to a point again. The same point had moved through all of the angles of the pentagon, then reverted to the point. Each line, vertical or horizontal, had exactly measured the radius of a sphere that enclosed the pentagon. He felt a jolt of dread as he realised this could be some kind of mathematical riddle. It made no sense to be faced with a mathematical riddle in this world. It felt jarringly wrong. Had the Way recognised the fact he came from Earth where science, and mathematics, were so important? Did it toy with him in a setting a riddle appropriate to his all-too-scientific world?

  He hadn’t got a clue.

  But it was no good moaning about it. A mathematical riddle, then … A point that became a line. To his none-too-mathematical mind it pointed to the most obvious of numerals – one. One measured the vertical and the horizontal of a perfect square. One squared reverted to the point. Even a maths dumbo knew that. Did it just emphasise that one squared still equalled one? It seemed so piddlingly mundane, yet he had nothing to lose in speaking it aloud to see what happened. ‘One squared is one. For that matter, one cubed is one. And the square root of one is also one.’