Consorts of Heaven (35 page)

Not while there was breath in her body to oppose them they wouldn’t.

‘Put that down!’

They turned to see Einon pointing his own crossbow at them. He indicated the crossbow Sais was in the process of reloading.

Urien, kneeling beside the chasm, called back, ‘Let him be, Einon. We may need another weapon before this night is through.’ He reached below the lip of the chasm. Suddenly the bridge was back in place. The speed of it reminded Kerin of the way a simple touch instantly lit or darkened Einon’s lantern. The Escori stood and waited for the others to join him, then led them across.

As they stepped onto the dais, a formless radiance grew around them. Einon hesitated, no doubt captivated by the divine light. Kerin suspected it was more of Sais’s technology. Urien walked up to the Cariad’s high-backed chair and reached under the armrest. As quickly as it had appeared, the bridge was gone; this time Kerin was watching, and she saw it slide into a recess under the lip of the chasm.

They followed Urien past the chair and through an opening directly behind it, which brought them out into the middle of a short passage. To the left, the passage ended in a wooden door. To the right was what appeared to be the ghost of a door: a rectangle the same size as an ordinary door, but dark grey, with no handle or markings. A paler grey rectangle was set into the rock wall beside it. The rectangle had some sort of pattern along the right-hand side. Urien turned this way.

‘What’s back there?’ asked Sais, jerking a thumb behind them to the other door.

‘The Cariad’s personal chambers,’ replied Urien.

‘And this is the only way into the Sanctaith Glan?’

‘That is so.’

So it was a door, and beyond it she would find her son, who, unless she saved him, would suffer a strange and terrible fate. Kerin darted past the others and ran up to the grey door.

‘Wait!’ called Sais.

It was too late. The smaller rectangle began to glow, as though a cold fire had sprung to life behind it, and more markings appeared across it. They were symbols of some sort - numbers, perhaps?

She looked over her shoulder to see Sais approaching. The two priests waited back down the corridor, looking uncertain. Kerin took half a step back - her thoughtless concern for Damaru may have put them all in danger. Sais brushed past her and stared at the marks on the screen. He made a quiet ‘hah!’ sound, and gave a small shake of his head.

‘What are you doing?’ called Urien.

‘What you asked me to do,’ he replied. ‘There’s a good chance they know we’re coming, so you might want to bring that crossbow up here, Einon.’

He turned back to Kerin. ‘I’d stand to the side if I were you,’ he muttered. ‘That way they’ll shoot Einon first.’

Kerin pressed herself against the wall. Sais touched some of the symbols on the right-hand side of the rectangle. The pattern changed, with more symbols appearing at the end of the currently displayed ones. The pattern became brighter. Then it disappeared.

The door slid to one side.

For a moment, everyone stood still. Kerin heard a strange sound, a faint
peep-peep-peep
, and smelled something sweet and rotten on the air.

Sais ran into the chamber, brandishing his crossbow. Einon and Urien did not move.

She could not leave Sais to face the threat alone. After a moment’s hesitation she charged in after him.

She found herself in another large, round room. But unlike the testing chamber, the ceiling here was not much higher than in a normal room, giving the place an oppressive air. The room was dominated by a half-circle of odd-looking black objects, like great boxes with bulging tops and glowing lights on the end, large enough for a person to lie in. These strange boxes were arranged on a circular platform in the middle of the room. From the very centre, a thin column of silver disappeared into darkness - the Edefyn Arian. The boxes must go all the way around the base of the Silver Thread. There had to be fifty of them on the platform in all.

Sais was chasing an orange-robed figure round the far side of the ring of boxes.

Kerin skidded to a halt, and looked around for the remaining Escori. He stood further round the wall, beside a panel like the one outside the door. The section of wall above it was smooth and covered in a complex pattern of lights of many colours. He had one hand raised to touch the lights, though he was looking at her. A moment later Einon and Urien ran through the door. Urien looked grave, Einon wild-eyed.

As soon as they had entered the chamber, the door slid shut again. Kerin thought of a hunter’s trap, catching a fox.

The Escori by the wall drew back his hand at the same time as Einon raised his crossbow.

Urien’s shout - ‘No!’ - rung out as the Escori slammed his fist into the lights.

A moment later, he screamed and fell over.

‘Einon!’ bellowed Urien.

‘I’m, ah, I’m sorry, Escori! I panicked!’

Kerin ran over to the fallen man. The hand he had smashed the lights with had tiny pieces of coloured glass embedded in it, and bled freely. His other hand was wrapped around the crossbow bolt sticking out of his thigh. From the look of the blood pumping through his clenched fingers, this was a far more serious wound. Kerin knelt next to him. He blinked up at her, confused. ‘Who?’ he muttered.

‘Lie still. I can help you.’ She got her knife out and started ripping into the hem of her skirt. She had to slow the blood-flow or the man would die.

‘What have you done, Sefion?’

Kerin looked up to see Urien standing over them, his face showing a mixture of pity and horror.

Her patient blinked and focused on the standing Escori. ‘Made sure you receive Her judgment,’ he whispered hoarsely.

Kerin managed to tear a strip from her skirt. Coloured threads, the remains of her embroidery, hung from the fabric. It would have to do. She started to ease it under Escori Sefion’s leg. ‘Who—?’ he murmured again, staring at her.

‘Let her tend you,’ said Urien softly. Kerin suspected he knew, as she did, that this man was most likely doomed. She began to form a prayer to Turiach, then stopped. Somewhere in all the wild talk and the ritual and the fear, she had lost her faith. Maybe it was when Sais confirmed that her son was being taken from her to serve others’ terrible schemes, or the way she saw apparent miracles controlled by a mortal’s touch; perhaps the last straw was seeing Sais’s easy mastery of the door puzzle. Whatever the cause, at some point, she had changed. She no longer believed her prayers would be answered.

Sefion looked back at Urien, though the fallen Escori’s gaze had already clouded. He gave a laugh that turned into a cough. ‘I have been true to the Skymothers,’ he croaked. ‘I do not fear death.’

Kerin tied the fabric off. The pool of red had already seeped out to wet her knees. The flow was slowing, though she suspected that had more to do with the Escori’s failing heart than with her skill.

She looked up to see Sais approaching, preceded by the Escori of Medelwyr. Sais had his crossbow pointed at the other man. Einon had lowered his own weapon and stood, his face stricken, staring at Urien’s back, as though waiting for his Escori to turn round and tell him what to do.

Kerin looked back at Sefion, whose eyes had closed. She had done all she could. She stood up and wiped off the worst of the blood on her tattered skirt. Urien, his lips pressed tight, made the circle over Sefion, then turned away. He strode towards Prysor, who looked less confident than his dying companion.

Sais, keeping an eye on the pair of them, began to move round towards Kerin.

His voice harsh, Urien asked, ‘Where is Idwal?’

The other Escori flinched, then raised his chin. ‘He is dead. As will you be when the Cariad returns.’

‘Where is She now, then?’

Prysor looked away. ‘Her Divinity awaits rebirth,’ he said. ‘She will return in glory, bringing the red rain, and all will be well.’

Kerin very much doubted that.

‘Then why the deception?’ asked Urien. ‘Why have we been bowing down to a mortal woman for all these years? Why has the Beloved Daughter of Heaven not been reborn already?’

Sais reached Kerin. ‘I need to look at those controls on the wall behind you,’ he whispered.

She stood aside so he could get to the smashed lights and now-dim panel.

‘You should not question her will,’ said Prysor. He sounded like he was on the verge of questioning it himself.

‘I do not want too, but your actions - the three of you - have forced me to do so!’ said Urien. ‘Tell me what is really going on.’

‘I - all right. The time is near: you can do nothing to change what happens now, so you may as well know the truth,’ said Prysor. ‘It happened nearly six years ago. We had not seen her Divinity for some days. Eventually we crossed the chasm in the testing hall. We had to get guards to bring planks, as we knew nothing of how the Cariad had made the bridge appear. We found her in her bed, as though she slept. But we could not wake her. She was dead. At that moment I felt - I felt as though Creation had been swallowed by the Abyss. For the Escori of Carunwyd, that was the end. His heart had always been weak and it gave out, then and there.’

‘Why did you not tell us this, me and Idwal!’ said Urien.

Above her, Sais was muttering to himself. Suddenly he darted away, towards the door.

‘Because she forbade it - even in death her will lives on. When we saw her lying there, we felt the world change around us, like a door opening in our minds. We knew this was not the end, merely part of the cycle of the Cariad’s existence. Knowledge only she had held before flooded into us, as though part of her entered our souls, to be kept until her rebirth; which, we now knew, would come when the winnowing times returned. It was our sacred duty to keep the secret until then. We selected a woman we thought would be a good substitute until her Divinity’s rebirth. We did not choose wisely, as she has been . . . difficult. No matter, all will be well when the Cariad returns.’

‘So we must hope,’ murmured Urien.

Sais, over at the door, suddenly said, ‘Shit!’

Everyone turned to look at him.

‘I think we’re locked in,’ he announced. He nodded at Prysor. ‘Unless you’re registered on this palmlock.’

Prysor looked down his nose at Sais then turned and addressed Urien. ‘I have no idea what this peasant is talking about,’ he said.

Urien said, ‘
Are
we locked in? Did Sefion somehow stop the operation of the door?’

Prysor looked uncomfortable. ‘The means to open the door from inside is somewhat more complicated than the simple puzzle that allows entry. Sefion has destroyed that mechanism.’

‘This can unlock it too.’ Sais pointed at another panel, small and plain, about the size of a hand. ‘For the right person.’

‘Can it?’ Urien asked Prysor.

‘Touch it and see!’ said Prysor.

Sais shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. I’ve seen these before. If there’s no cell-match, then depending on how the security’s set . . . well, on the highest setting you only get one try.’

‘Who is this madman, and what gibberish is he spouting?’ muttered Prysor.

Sais said, ‘So, Prysor, are you on the guest list?’

‘I think,’ said Urien, ‘that my rather strange companion is asking whether your touch will open this door.’

Prysor shook his head. ‘Only the hand of Heaven can open the way. And though I expect to be rewarded when the Cariad is reborn, your fates will not be so good.’

‘Oh, great,’ said Sais. ‘Well, Prysor here already admitted to me that the carousel goes up automatically. He was expecting to hang around here for the day, praying and meditating while he waited for it to come back. Except now we’re all locked in with him, and when the carousel comes back, it’ll have the Cariad in it, and while she might want to reward him for his faithful service, I suspect he’s right about her not being so pleased to see the rest of us.’

‘Master Sais,’ said Urien, ‘though I find your speech most interesting, I am having some trouble working out what you mean. I do not know the word
automatically
. And what is this
carousel
?’

‘Sorry, yeah, I was just—well, panicking, actually. “Automatically” means there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it. And the “carousel” is that.’ He pointed at the strange circle of boxes. ‘The sacred ring that goes up the Silver Thread carrying all the Consorts.’

Kerin had not grasped all the conversation, though she knew that they were trapped and in trouble. But when Sais indicated the boxes, she remembered in a guilty rush why she was here. ‘Is my son over there?’ she said, speaking to Prysor, and pointing at the thing Sais had called the ‘carousel’.

‘Your son - the Consort? Aye.’

Kerin started to run towards the boxes. ‘Which one is he in?’ she shouted. Though they may be doomed, she would not let Damaru be used by their enemies. She would fight them with her son by her side.

‘The two Consorts who were found worthy have only just entered the sacred sleep,’ said Prysor stiffly.

‘Where is he?’ She was almost at the ring of boxes now. They were larger than she had thought. She could see no way of opening them.

‘One of the chambers with amber lights. He will be in there.’ Then she heard him add more quietly, ‘Urien, can you not stop this woman?’

Behind her, the Escori of Frythil muttered, ‘Prysor, I suspect very few forces in Creation can stop this woman.’ She might have laughed, had she not been so worried.

Each box had a panel of clear glass set in the top. To see inside she had to climb on the box itself. A step had been provided for this very purpose. She looked in through the window, straining to see the figure within. The light was bad; she found herself squinting to make out details - and saw skin stretched tight over bones, wide-open eyes rotted in their sockets. The box contained a corpse.