Druids Sword (47 page)

“
Y
ou think it is worth it, to have you dead?” Noah said. “The Troy Game completed, and you dead? That is a double tragedy.”

“A worse tragedy than seeing the land suffer as it is now?” Jack said. “A worse tragedy than watching the Faerie sicken and die? Better to complete the Troy Game and hope that, somehow, Grace returns from the living dead with some means of subsequently destroying the Game. Better I dead, than this nightmare continue.”

“The Troy Game will not be able to be destroyed once it is completed. Ariadne said—”

“Ariadne has been wrong before. All Games can be unwound, even one so powerful as the Troy Game. You’re a powerful Darkwitch, Noah, as is Grace. Between you—”

“Between us there will be nothing but grief if you were dead,” said Noah very softly. “Do you think Grace wants to return to find you gone? What will it do to her?”

“She will cope,” said Jack, but his face was terribly tight, and Noah could see the effort it took him to remain calm. He, and Noah, knew that if he died during the completion of the Troy Game, it wouldn’t just be a death…it would be an eternal
damnation to whatever the malignant forces of the dark heart of the labyrinth chose for him.

Catling would not let him rest easy.

“Perhaps Grace can…” Jack’s voice drifted off.

“Perhaps Grace can pull you out of
death?
Jack, there are too many perhapses. This is such a stupid plan. We—”

“It is the only plan we have, Noah. Can you think of something better?”

Noah was silent.

“We have almost no room left to move, Noah. Catling will eviscerate both land and Faerie
and
Grace if we don’t complete her. We don’t have any means by which to unwind her—she is too powerful and I don’t have the final two bands. Besides, doing that will kill Grace more certainly than anything Catling has done to her. Noah, we must complete the Game, with whatever consequences, and pray that Grace returns with
something.
”

“Grace may not return, Jack. We have only Catling’s word that she will, and we all know what her word is worth.”

Jack did not reply, staring instead with dark, unfathomable eyes into the forest.

“We need to discuss this with the Lord of the Faerie and Weyland and—” Noah said.

Jack’s gaze swung back to her. “No. We don’t discuss it. We just do it, Noah. There is nothing left to discuss.”

T
he winter solstice was late. A week late, and that week, more than anything else, was an indication that Catling was spiralling not merely the Faerie and the land, but the entire planet, downward into oblivion.

There was no choice, in the end, except to do what she wanted. While the Lord of the Faerie, Weyland, Stella, Ariadne and Silvius did not know that the day could prove fatal to Jack, they did know that he and Noah meant to complete the Troy Game. Given the circumstances, and despite their terrible misgivings, they reluctantly agreed that completion of the Game was the only option left to them.

No one would survive another year if Catling did not get what she wanted.

When Brutus and Genvissa had started the final Dance of the Flowers atop Og’s Hill three and a half thousand years previously, it had been a grand occasion with virtually the entire population of Troia Nova and the Sacred Hills in attendance. Hundreds of Trojan youths, men and women, had accompanied Brutus and Genvissa in the final dance. It had been held in light and openness and majesty, and Brutus and Genvissa had come close to completing the Troy Game then and there.

But Cornelia—Noah—had stepped in and
plunged Asterion’s horn dagger into Genvissa’s neck. Genvissa, dying, had cursed everyone to continual rebirth until she had her revenge.

But it hadn’t been Genvissa who had passed the real curse, had it? That had been the manipulative Troy Game itself, manoeuvring everyone it needed to do just what it willed.

Now, more than three thousand years later, Jack and Noah were about to do what the Troy Game wanted. They were sick at heart, and close to physical nausea because of what they were about to do, but they had no choice. It was not merely Grace’s life which rode on the night, but the life of the entire land and Faerie besides.

This was no glorious spectacle as the original Dance of the Flowers had been. No one attended save Jack and Noah. There were no dancers, no witnesses, no crowds.

Shortly after dusk Noah and Jack entered St Paul’s. They were clothed in magic and mystery, and as on those occasions Jack had come to the cathedral to talk with Catling, none among the cathedral staff saw them.

They walked very slowly up the nave towards the space under the great dome. Both had dressed in the simple white linen of Kingman and Mistress: a hipwrap for Jack and a long skirt for Noah. Neither wore any shoes, and they were bare of adornment save for Jack’s four golden kingship bands on his arms.

The markings about his shoulders writhed desperately, as if they wanted to escape.

Noah carried in one hand a small posy of flowers, sad insipid things, which had been the best she could find at this time of year.

Halfway up the nave she reached out her free hand and took one of Jack’s.

“I can’t believe it has come to this,” she whispered.

“Noah, we have to do it.”

“Jack…” Her voice choked with emotion, and Jack stopped and faced her, taking both Noah’s shoulders in his hands. “Noah,
we have no choice.
” He paused, taking a deep breath to steady his own nerves. “We have
never
had a choice.”

“I—”

“It should have been me you plunged that knife into so long ago, Cornelia,” Jack said, his mouth quirking a little as he called her by her original name. “Without me, we would have had none of this mess.”

She tried to smile at him, but it trembled and vanished before it had any chance at life. “This is so stupid. Here we are about to condemn the world to a nightmare, and there is no one here to watch.”

“Ah,” said Catling, stepping out of the shadows, “but there is me. Glad you could come. Happy you’re here.” Her voice hardened. “Now get on with it.”

Then she took another step closer. “Jack? No leg bands? What is this?”

“If I could find them I’d wear them,” said Jack. “But I can’t find them—and if you don’t know where they are, Catling, with your power, then don’t blame me for not being able to locate them.”

“Ah, don’t give me that! I know you have them! You just want me to believe you’re weak. I’m sorry, Jack, but I am not letting down my guard. Just get on with it, but know I’ll be watching for the first sign of treachery.”

Catling looked at Jack very carefully. “If I sense any duplicity in you, Jack, then what I have done thus far will be but a foretaste of what I
can
do. Try to trick me if you will, but you—and everyone else—shall live to regret it.”

“The land already regrets you,” Noah said.

“Don’t interrupt,” Catling snapped, her eyes not leaving Jack’s face. “Well?”

“No trickery,” Jack said. “I just want to get this over and done with.”

Catling stared a moment longer, then gave a small nod. “Good, then get on with it. I’ve waited way too long for this moment.”

The White Queen had gone, and Grace wandered alone in her hell.

Except it was not quite a hell any more, for Grace knew she had the means to not only control it, but use the power behind it.

“Jack is about to do something very stupid,” she whispered to herself, “and I have to stop him.”

And to do that she must manage two tasks: escape this hell, and escape it whole.

Grace sighed, and let her Darkcraft flow forth. Catling had used the power of the dark heart of the labyrinth to create this nightmare, and so Grace used the same power to manipulate it.

Show me,
she commanded, and she saw before her a terrible sight.

Herself, fractured and wasted, lying still on a hospital bed. To one side sat Jack, in a chair, his head in his hands. The vision shifted, and Grace saw her parents on the other side of the bed, her father’s arm about Noah, their faces flat with misery.

“Oh,” Grace murmured.

The vision shifted a little more. Now Jack was back, and Grace saw several nurses, peering out from the nurses’ station, their eyes on Jack, their faces hopeless with love.

Grace smiled.

The vision shifted a final time, and Grace saw Jack and her mother in St Paul’s Cathedral.

“Oh,” she said again, her smile now gone.

“Don’t interrupt,” Catling snapped, her eyes not leaving Jack’s face. “Well?”

Noah and Jack stood under the dome of St Paul’s. Evensong service was in progress about them, the cathedral almost full with worshippers, and yet it was as if two cathedrals existed: the cathedral of the mortal world, where people sang and prayed and clerics preached; and the shadow cathedral, where ancient beings bowed their heads, and began a dance of such antiquity that it both physically and metaphorically undermined everything the mortal worshippers believed.

Jack and Noah were aware of the worshippers, but paid them no regard save for a mild ironic thought that they were to have an audience, however unknowing, after all.

They stood at opposite aspects of the dome: Noah in its eastern sector, Jack in its western.

For the moment Noah stood still, watching Jack. Before they could begin the Dance of the Flowers, creating the Flower Gate which would trap evil within the dark heart of the labyrinth and complete the Troy Game, Jack had to raise the labyrinth.

As Brutus, so many thousands of years ago, Jack had buried the labyrinth deep within Og’s Hill, where St Paul’s now stood. He’d done it to preserve the labyrinth, to save it until he and a reborn Genvissa could raise it again and finish what they had started.

It was difficult work, not merely because Jack had only four of the bands, but because it had been so long since he’d created the enchantment which had hidden the labyrinth. As Brutus he’d been racked with grief for Genvissa and consumed with anger at Cornelia, and it was now difficult for Jack to remember precisely what he’d done through the mists of both time and overwhelming emotion.

Noah, watching, found it almost unbearable. She could see the difficulty Jack was having, but she was almost overpowered by a sense of loss. This man, who she had hated and loved in equal measure, and who had been so much to her for so very long, was calling into daylight the means of his death.

Tears slid silently from her eyes. Noah was devastated, her heart ached with loss, but she was far more affected by the realisation that at some point in the last hours she had come to accept it.

Better Jack’s death than that of the land.

“Cornelia must indeed be dead,” she murmured, “and Eaving rampant, if I can think thus.”

Across the dome, Jack suddenly stepped back, raising his face to Noah.

She gasped. The black and white marble flooring under the dome had become translucent, and she could see, from far, far below, a huge labyrinth rising towards the surface.

Grace sighed and, remembering how she had used the power of the pain of her wrists, directed the power that had created the nightmarish world of fractured images and memories to release her.

Back to my body,
she commanded,
and a body that works, if you please.

As she left the hell that Catling had built for her, Grace saw Catling herself, deep in the dark heart of the Troy Game.

For a moment Grace stilled, not frightened, but curious, wondering if Catling saw her.

But Catling was oblivious. Grace was the last thing on her mind. Catling only had eyes for what her Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth were doing.

The marble floor under the dome of St Paul’s vanished, replaced now by the ancient unicursal
seven-circuit labyrinth of Crete, laid out in cream and brown stones as it had been when first built by Brutus.

The dancing floor.

Noah took a deep, shaky breath, and raised her head to look at Jack.

He was staring at her. Very slowly, he raised his hand towards her.

Noah swallowed, summoned her courage, and allowed the power of the labyrinth to infuse her.

Grace rose from her bed, and nurses started back, shocked.

She stumbled, clutching to the back of a chair for support. “Damn these legs!” she said. Grace’s face tightened in concentration and her form seemed to glow for an instant, then she straightened and, although still weak and uncertain on her feet, was nonetheless stronger than she had been a moment ago.

She looked at the nurses. “Can you help me? If someone could take out this feeding tube from my nose…and I need a coat, and perhaps some shoes, and I need to get to St Paul’s very, very quickly. Does anyone have a car?”

The ward sister, a marvellously stern woman called Sister Marr, had experienced many crises and challenges during almost forty working years on the wards of St Bart’s and, although slightly put out by the girl’s apparently miraculous recovery, was determined not to let the strangeness of the request unsettle her before the junior nurses.

After all, a lifetime’s reputation was at stake.

“Is this absolutely necessary, Miss Orr?” Sister Marr said.

“Absolutely
vital,
” Grace said.

“Well then,” Sister Marr said, “I do not have a car, but I can requisition an ambulance for you.” She
looked Grace up and down. “After all, you still look as if you need it.”

Grace smiled, so sweetly it took the nurses’ breath away.

“Sister Marr,” she said, “you are a saint.”

They danced about the perimeter of the labyrinth, their movements graceful yet charged with a powerful sexuality. About them, unknowing, the congregation sang a hymn, and the slow, measured beat of the hymn penetrated into the magic surrounding Jack and Noah, and they danced to its rhythms and tempo.

The golden bands about Jack’s arms glittered as his arms moved slowly through the dance, his face kept turned to Noah.

He kept hold of the dance and the labyrinthine power which consumed him only with the most extreme effort. The lack of the final two bands was beginning to exhaust Jack, and he could feel, flickering at the edges of his consciousness, a dark and hungry presence.

As Noah danced, she allowed single flowers to fall from the posy she carried, and they drifted here and there about the labyrinth, apparently falling at random, yet somehow forming a pattern all of their own.

Something sinister started to rise from the dark heart of the labyrinth.

Sister Marr sat in the back of the ambulance and stared at the girl who sat opposite her. Someone had found her an ancient hound’s-tooth check coat, and she had it wrapped tight about her body.

The coat was meant for a large man, and it was so bulky about Grace Orr that it highlighted, rather than hid, her painful thinness.

No one had been able to find shoes to fit the girl, and so her legs emerged from under the hem of the coat like white, knobbly sticks, her bare feet overly large for her skeletal limbs.

Every so often the ambulance rocked as it rounded a corner, and Grace had to brace herself against the partition that divided the driver’s cab from the back of the vehicle.

“Who the hell are you, Grace Orr?” said Sister Marr.

The girl smiled, and Marr was struck by how lovely her face was, despite being crowned by a head of hair that had been terribly decimated by the surgery on her skull.

“I am the White Queen’s sister,” she said.

The flowers that Noah had scattered about the labyrinth began to move, sliding towards the entrance. Jack and Noah continued their dance, but now they were approaching each other, gravitating, like the flowers, towards the entrance to the labyrinth.

As they came to within ten paces of the entrance, the flowers rose one by one, weaving themselves into the form of a gate.

And as the Flower Gate rose, so the darkness at the heart of the labyrinth slid along the labyrinth’s paths, towards the gate.

The ambulance drew to a halt outside the west door of St Paul’s, and Sister Marr asked Grace if she needed help.

Grace smiled again. “You have already been a wonderful aid, Sister Marr. Thank you.”

And then she was gone into the evening gloom, hobbling slowly on bare feet up the steps towards the doors, the coat clutched about her.

Noah looked at Jack with desperate eyes. The Dance of the Flowers was almost done, the Flower Gate within a few inches of being completed, and something loathsome approached from the dark heart of the labyrinth. This was to be expected…to a point. The entire purpose of a Game was to protect a city from evil by trapping such evil within the heart of the labyrinth. When the Game was opened, it began to attract the evil that naturally gravitates to the life and vibrancy of any city into its heart. Then, when the Game was closed with the Flower Gate, the evil would be trapped within the labyrinth for eternity—or so long as the Game lasted. During the final Dance of the Flowers, when the Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth raised the Flower Gate, Noah knew that it was to be expected that the evil within the dark heart should panic and try to escape.