The Tower of Bones Read online

  Take you

  Take me

  Altogether make three

  Who are we?

  Mo whispered, softly: ‘The Lost Children!’

  It was the Peter Pan game – the game they would escape into when their adoptive father had locked them away in the dark. In their imaginations they could travel anywhere they wanted, have the greatest adventures …

  Only Mark and she knew the game. Mo stared, speechless, as the shimmering circle on the face of the Ship became a screen in which a hand was imprinted, as if pressing towards her from the other side.

  Qwenqwo embraced her, then moved forward to place his hand against the impression in the shimmering circle.

  ‘Is it truly you, young Ironheart?’ he exclaimed.

  Qwenqwo!

  ‘Then it is you!’

  I’m here – but I’m not sure I’m real.

  ‘Be assured – you live.’

  How do you know that?

  ‘I climbed to the top of the Rath of the Dark Queen. The Mage Lord and I, we both observed there was nobody at the summit.’

  But what does that mean?

  ‘Your destiny you fulfilled, and more. You were subsumed, in the flesh and in the spirit, by the Third Power.’

  If so – where am I?

  ‘If I judge it right, you have entered Dromenon.’

  Instinctively Mo ran forward, to place her hand against the impression of that other welcoming hand. The sense of communication was instantaneous.

  ‘Mark – Mark! Is it really you?’

  Mo – I can sense you!

  Was it her imagination or did she feel Mark’s hand hold her own, the way he would comfort her when, after Grimstone or Bethel had locked her in the cellar, he would sneak down to keep her company in the dark.

  ‘You’re really here?’

  I’m one with the Temple Ship.

  ‘I can’t bear to think of you so alone.’

  I’m not alone. But I don’t have time for explanations. We’re going to have to do something to save Alan. You can’t stay here. You and Qwenqwo – you must leave the Ship.’

  ‘I won’t leave you. I won’t. Not now I’ve found you again.’

  Mo – listen to me. It’s been so wonderful to be able to talk to you, and to Qwenqwo. But it’s too dangerous for you to stay. You really have to get away. There’s no more time to explain. You’ve got to trust me.

  ‘Please, no!’

  You must leave the Temple Ship immediately!

  The Fáil

  The sense of doom was like blood filling Alan’s mouth. The golden robot was about sixty yards away and yet already it appeared as tall as a house. Above its head, held tight in the gauntlets of its two gigantic arms, was the enormous spiked ball and chain, ready to strike. He saw the tension in the cables, the strain increasing as the mechanical wheels turned, the ratchets, cogwheels, cables and hawsers, the gyroscopes that gave it balance, the irredeemable focus of those flat, glassy eyes, the sheer unstoppable ferocity of its purpose.

  Thus have you determined your own fate! I have programmed the machine so it will strike, again and again, tirelessly and endlessly. You will no longer have any presence – any physical being – in this exalted place.

  With all of his might Alan tried to turn the power of the oraculum against it, but there wasn’t even a flicker of a response.

  Resist as you will. But it will be to no avail. Your flesh will be scattered to dribbets and flecks, forever to remain rooted in this unforgiving place. Your soul spirit will become one of the ghosts that abide within for eternity, bewailing its fate.

  The ground shivered and shook, as if each ponderous step of the monster’s approach caused a quake in the fabric of Dromenon.

  ‘You killed my mom and dad. Why – why did you do it?’

  Such loyalty is touching. But individual lives are so brief as to be meaningless. What matters if two such candles have burnt out prematurely?

  ‘Their deaths matter to me. I know you killed them. And I loathe you for it.’

  Hate me then – I am no witch goddess that would cherish love. But at least let me open your eyes onto a broader vision. Unshackle your mind to consider what might yet become your destiny. Behold the power you so desperately wished to confront!

  Alan was overwhelmed by a shockwave so awesome that even the eye of the oraculum seemed to blink and close before opening again onto a vision that stopped his breath. At the heart of the void an explosion of light came into being and expanded within the same moment, bursting through the darkness in an incandescent swirl of rainbow hues. In the eerie absence of sound, he saw a giant sun come into being from the expanding maelstrom, only to explode again before condensing into what appeared to be a galaxy. The scale of change, of successive being and unbeing, was so gargantuan he could only stare at what was happening in wonder.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  How could you possibly understand? You can but witness its glory shackled by the mechanical vision of your world.

  Alan forced himself to ignore the continuing approach of the robot, which must by now be no more than thirty yards away, the ground underneath his feet heaving as if he were riding a turbulent ocean.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  The Tyrant was silent.

  It was as if Alan’s being had contracted to a mote of dust, against which he beheld a proliferation of galaxies and nebulas that eddied and spiralled about him, gigantic explosions of supernovae, whirling oceans of gaseous energy more brilliant than any rainbow. He was gazing into one of the stellar furnaces where a new universe was coming into being.

  ‘What are you implying? This is some kind of … of revelation?’

  The witches saw fit to criticise the harnessing of such a wonder. Small minds terrified of the ultimate ambition – infinite power!

  Alan’s voice fell to a whisper, husky with uncertainty. ‘You’re talking about the Arinn?’

  Such power! Of all the beings on all the worlds, the Arinn alone had the knowledge and the courage to harness it. Such was their vision – they discovered how to control the very root of being. They became one with it.

  The robot was so close that Alan could feet the radiating heat from its engines. He slithered down onto his knees, his bewildered head dropping.

  ‘But why – why would they do that?’

  Can you still fail to see what I am offering you? The choice between life as a short and brutal struggle – or the ultimate control over your own destiny – eternity!

  Over the estuary a fleet of ships commanded by Shee had taken to the water, racing toward the boat that was carrying Mo and Qwenqwo back to the shore. Mo was standing in the prow, screaming at them all to stay back. A sound filled the air, a keening so loud it caused widening ripples from around the great shape of the Temple Ship and echoed from the walls across the estuary.

  ‘Row – row! Turn back! Your very lives depend on it!’ The dwarf mage shouted to the Kyra, who was standing erect in the prow of the nearest boat.

  The great manta ray wings of the Ship glowed, as if aflame with an inner light, its surface becoming incandescent.

  It was the young Kyra’s turn to roar, a command she transmitted through the oraculum as much as her voice: ‘Back to shore!’

  The Temple Ship began to rise from the water, deluging the sleek craft of the Shee that surrounded it. They were tossed and buffeted by the downdrafts, caught up in a local cauldron of storm winds, as the air was battered down by the beating of the enormous wings.

  ‘See,’ Qwenqwo marvelled, staring upwards. ‘It’s changing.’

  Feathers of the purest white sprang into being over the rising colossus. A raptor’s curved beak arose where the blind head of the ray had been, and the eyes above the beak were black, an all-consuming force of determination, in which they glimpsed a fast-pulsating matrix of silver.

  ‘Has your crystal evoked this terror, Fir Bolg?’ The young Kyra roared at the dwarf mage with the gaze he well remember
ed from her sister-mother.

  ‘This is beyond any power of mine,’ he shouted back.

  Holding aloft the runestone, Qwenqwo groaned as he saw it turn black, the silver matrix pulsating so powerfully within it he could barely keep hold of it. Pride glowed in his eyes as he acknowledged the real source and nature of the communication.

  ‘Young Ironheart! Take with you all my hopes and blessing!’

  Both Kyra and the dwarf mage paused for a heartbeat then their faces, as one, lifted skywards to behold the leviathan that dwarfed them rising out of the water, with the enormous wings creating a whirlpool in the ocean beneath as it gathered momentum with colossal down-thrusts. The great shape held still for a moment like a hovering eagle, then it spiralled heavenwards, rising at such speed it seemed to gain a mile of loft with a few wing beats, until it had become a mere speck – and then was gone. The Kyra’s oraculum pulsated rapidly in her brow.

  Across the estuary a host of watchers had joined them – the guard on the walls and the people of Carfon – all eyes staring skywards. A pinpoint of light appeared where the speck had been, expanding in an instant, until it seemed that a star was falling out of the heavens. A moment later they heard the screech of the tormented atmosphere as it fell, the air erupting into fire with its passage. The gasps of awe became screams of terror over the walls of the ancient city as the target of the approaching fireball became clear. There was no time to think, no time even to consider hurling themselves into the sea as the flaming mass engulfed them. But where the Kyra and dwarf mage expected the explosion of its impact into the stony fabric of the ancient city, the fireball vanished, leaving only the incandescent line of its passage still hanging in the air.

  The robot towered over Alan. The ground-quaking thud of its feet, that slow booming drumbeat, had stopped. In its place the vile symphony of buzzing, clicking and ticking had grown deafening, echoing and reverberating inside his skull, as if his head had been invaded by the pestilential hordes of insects. He could smell the oils that lubricated the engine’s joints, he could feel the hot exhausts of the engines that powered it, as if he faced the open doors of a gigantic furnace. As the golden arms rose to their highest point, he found himself helpless to prevent his fate, his mind numbed with horror. There was no point in trying the power in his brow – the oraculum was extinguished. He thought instead about his mom and dad, whose deaths the Tyrant had just blamed him for.

  He whispered, ‘I’ve failed you!’

  A hundred feet above his kneeling figure those glassy eye sockets reflected the icy white light of Dromenon.

  What was it waiting for? To torment him for a few more seconds?

  He raised his voice against the frenzy of buzzing. He brought to mind the last time he had seen his parents, before setting out on the skiing holiday at Aspen. ‘If I’m going to die, then I’ll do it on my feet, like an American.’

  Struggling back so he was standing, it took all of his will to keep his jerky legs still enough to bear him erect.

  Think, foolish child – a final chance?

  ‘I will never obey you. I will never betray my friends for you.’

  At the top of its reach the enormous spiked ball strained its heavy weight at the end of its chain. Alan’s eyes closed, his entire being stiffened, waiting for its ponderous arc to fall. He felt his mind invaded by darkness, as if the Tyrant so coveted his death he had invaded Alan’s being to share the experience of it, the annihilation of his body, the complete subjugation of his spirit. Alan did his best to hold onto the image that meant so much to him – that memory of Mom and Dad.

  An explosion of light blinded him even through his closed lids. He heard words, mind-to-mind – a voice he recognised:

  What’s it worth, Alan?

  Mark’s voice – Mark’s sense of humour! It made no sense. Nothing made sense any more.

  Then, abruptly, he sensed something else that felt like a sudden, overwhelming fear. It wasn’t his own fear – his own he was familiar with already. But there was no longer time to wonder as his body disintegrated. Alan felt the shockwave pass through him, an explosion so intense it incinerated his being. Yet, strangely, he was still aware, sentient. The universe in which his consciousness remained was a world of silence – nothingness. Then he saw them materialise out of the nothingness, standing immediately in front of him, their arms extended as if to embrace him.

  ‘Mom – Dad?’

  He felt his soul spirit materialise as if it had come together again, even if only for a moment, like a single desperate thought lingering in this world of darkness. He felt the impression of tears well into his eyes and run over his cheeks. He saw the same tears fill their eyes. He strained to meet them, moving in a strange slow motion as if under water, yet somehow he closed the distance between them until they could embrace.

  He was looking into his father’s eyes.

  ‘Hey – I’m sorry.’

  His father’s arm embraced his shoulders as if to reassure him. His mother’s two arms were about his waist. They held him, comforted him, for several seconds. Then he saw Mom and Dad each reach out with an arm, their hands opening, fingers splaying, as if to show him something.

  Alan stared about himself, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The darkness had become suffused with stars. He blinked, blinked again, trying to clear his eyes of the bewilderment of tears. He tried to speak, as all three of them embraced, weightless, within a wheeling cylinder made up of the night sky.

  But how could he still think like this? How could he think at all? Where was he? How could any of this be happening to him?

  It’s really beautiful!

  The Triangular Shadow

  Kate was back in the place of utter darkness; a terrible place, a place designed for torment of the spirit. It wasn’t a darkness you could see with your eyes, but a darkness that was the opposite of seeing. Not a darkness you could reach out and feel, but the absence of feeling, a darkness that when you tried to touch it, it swallowed your groping fingers, it swallowed your entire outstretched arm, and then it devoured more of you, your arms and legs, your entire body, even your screaming tongue, until it left nothing of you behind – nothing at all. You couldn’t hear it, or smell it, or taste it. The only way you knew it was there was the feeling, the awful, ghastly feeling, of being swallowed whole by it, of being devoured.

  The awful thing, the maddening thing, was that she couldn’t do anything to help herself. She was utterly powerless. She breathed in and out, deeply, repetitively, just to feel her chest expand. Her voice trembled as she tried to remember the childish incantation: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones – but my … my memories … my poor memories …’

  She was buried alive.

  How could anyone come to terms with that? How could anyone survive manacled to the wall in a coffin-like cell of cold, and darkness and silence? She couldn’t help touching herself, putting her fingers into her mouth. She bit determinedly on the knuckles of her right hand, to make herself aware that she was still here. But she couldn’t bite on memory, on spirit, on the really important things such as love, or hope, or faith. The silence was leaching those important things out of her. And with their loss her mind was drifting out of her control. She had found a small comfort in constructing dreams. People thought that dreams were random. But in the dark and silence of her coffin-cell she had found a way of guiding her hopes into dreams. She had opened her mind into a dream in which she was lying on her back among the rocky outcrops on the slope above the sawmill high in the fern-scented field at the foot of the Comeragh Mountains. The sky was drifting overhead – that wonderful summer’s sky, a gentle whisper of clouds.

  Was there ever a sky as lovely as that? And yet, under that lovely drifting sky, I’m growing excited … scared.

  The trouble was that the dream was apt to change against her will. And now it morphed into the time when they had discovered they were experiencing the same dream in their sleep. She didn’t want the dream to change. It
so terrified her that she scurried up the rock-strewn hillside in search of peace … and she forced it to change back again, to gaze up once more into the gentle drifting of the clouds. Her mind began to paint the clouds again. How lovely to have nothing else to do all day other than to gaze, in perfect tranquillity, at the whispering clouds …

  Oh, dreaming, let me just escape in dreams …

  And yet the scary darkness was never far away, the silence all around her, invading her dreams …

  Oh, God help me!

  Desperately, she willed to mind that other sweet, wonderful day. The day she had emerged through the gate in the ivy-clad wall, wheeling her bicycle. And Alan was waiting for her outside the gate …

  He kissed me. She remembered it. She no longer cared that she was dreaming from the silent confines of her coffin-grave. She willed the memory to mind, caught hold of it and refused to let it go. She breathed it aloud, no matter how much her lips trembled over the words. ‘He kissed me!’

  She clung to that kiss. It was the only hope that remained in the midst of so much darkness. Alan! She treasured that memory of him with all of her heart. Alan loves me. The memory of that single kiss would keep her alive for another hour. And then there were other kisses she would try her very best to remember. Each kiss had the potential of becoming another dream, another moment of blessed escape …

  I so love you too. I will always love you. If what must be will be, I will die still loving you.

  Kate held onto the dream of that one kiss. She curled her being around it as if she were a minuscule thing, an embryo, snuggling for the comfort it brought her …

  Wake!

  No! She refused to wake up. She squeezed herself even more closed, body and mind, her being ever more tightly curled about her dream.