Druids Sword (16 page)

If he was this uncertain, this isolated, this bewildered, then what hope had any of us?

No one within the clearing reacted to Jack’s cry. Walter kept cutting. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but his hand was moving as if possessed.

Only a slaughterman could cut so deftly.

There was blood everywhere. It flowed over Jack’s arms and down his back until it stained his trousers. He hadn’t made a sound since that initial cry, but I could see every muscle in his back and legs and arms tighten until I couldn’t believe that the stump itself didn’t implode under the pressure.

Walter kept on cutting.

I forced my eyes away from him and Jack, and saw that the Lord of the Faerie and Malcolm stared, not at Jack, but at the stag.

I jerked my eyes in its direction.

And felt a wave of faintness sweep over me.
Dear gods, I shouldn’t be here, I had no business here, I shouldn’t be seeing this
…
oh, gods, I was everyone’s doom
…
had I brought calamity to this ritual as well?

The stag was vanishing.

Curve by curve, line by line. His hindquarters had all gone, and his spine was dissolving as I watched. His back legs were there one moment, and gone the next.

Walter was carving the stag into Jack’s flesh.

And as he did, so the stag disappeared, line by line.

I knew then that I was witnessing the final marriage of Jack to his power and potential as the god of the forests. He was literally absorbing all that Og had been. After this ritual was completed, then so would Jack be absolute.

I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be here…

Too late to run away now…

Then a terrible sense of dread permeated my bones.

Something was standing behind me.

I didn’t want to look, but I had to. I couldn’t bear not to know.

I slowly turned my head.

She was standing about ten feet away, barely visible, but
there.
The despicable, terrible parody of the young woman, hiding her true nature behind that cold mask of beauty.

And then, for the first time in all these years, she spoke.

“Good girl,” she whispered, the patronising bitch. “You’re doing just what is needed.” Her face grimaced in a smile so cold that I cringed and clamped my eyes shut.

When I opened them again, she was gone.

Achingly slowly I looked back into the clearing, sure that all must be staring in my direction.

But no. Walter was still carving into Jack’s shoulders and back, the Lord of the Faerie was now looking at Jack rather than the stag—which was virtually all gone save for his shoulders and head—and Malcolm was studying the bloody tableau at the stump.

I felt frozen, my life stilled.
This
had been Catling’s plan, that I should be here; perhaps so that my presence should corrupt Jack’s final transformation.

The Lord of the Faerie was leaning down to Jack now, and I barely summoned the interest to keep on watching. He’d taken hold of Jack’s left arm, and was helping Jack to turn over so that he now lay with his bloody, mangled back against the stump.

I saw a glimpse of Jack’s face as he twisted, and it was truly terrible. That he was in agony there could be no doubt, and it appeared as if he could barely control his limbs—the Lord of the Faerie had to grab him at one point to stop him sliding off the stump.

Walter now began to carve into the front of Jack’s shoulders and chest. Walter was doing what all good priests of every religion have done since the beginning of time.

He was acting as a conduit for the god power.

I looked to Jack. He was flexing his legs very slightly up and down, his hips swivelling from side to side, as if he was in so much pain he could barely restrain himself from leaping up from the stump.

I found myself rubbing my own wrists, and wondered that Catling had not thought to wrap me in agony while she was here.

Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to interrupt the ritual taking place within the clearing.

The stag was now reduced to its spread of blood-red antlers, and as I watched even they disappeared.

Walter sighed, blinked, and tossed the scalpel to one side. His shoulders sagged momentarily, then he aided the Lord of the Faerie to pull Jack into a sitting position.

Jack’s entire torso was awash with blood. I could see the darker scoring of the lines Walter had cut into his flesh, but as there was so much blood about I could not make out their pattern.

As if I could not guess what pattern they would make.

I sank as low as I could. My protecting beech and crab apple were in Jack’s direct line of sight, and I was more scared than ever that I would be discovered.

Walter had now picked up a mortar and pestle, and was grinding away at whatever he had in the bowl. Then he set the pestle to one side, scooped up the ground ingredients in his fingers, and started to rub it into Jack’s cut flesh.

Jack cried out, and I winced. He twisted under Walter’s ever-rubbing fingers, but the Lord of the Faerie had him by the upper arms, and Walter continued to work away, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing over Jack’s shoulders, his back, down his chest.

Occasionally a low moan came from Jack’s lips, and his body flinched and shuddered as Walter’s fingers rubbed too deep here and there.

Then Walter stepped back.

“It is done,” he said. “I have made the mark.”

“And the mark has made Jack,” said the Lord of the Faerie.

Malcolm walked forward, and in his hand he had a pristine white towel. He rubbed away, first at Jack’s back, and then his shoulders and chest, removing the worst of the blood. He was not rough, but it could hardly have been a pleasant experience for Jack.

As soon as Malcolm had stepped back, the oncewhite towel now hanging limp and bloodied from his hands, the Lord of the Faerie made as if to help Jack to rise, but Jack shrugged him off irritably.

“I am no cripple,” he said, and he slid his feet down to the grass and stood upright.

He was still directly facing me, and thus I had clear sight of what happened next.

He stood, his head hanging down, his arms limp, his chest and shoulders looking as though they’d been through a mincer, then he shuddered, his arms jerked, and his head snapped up.

His body quivered, and appeared to blur for an instant.

Then, in the silence, I gasped, because his shoulders and chest (and back also, I knew, though I could not see it) completely lost their bloody aspect and appeared as though they were covered with blue-black living lines. I had thought Walter to be carving the image of the stag into Jack’s flesh, but that was not quite so.

I could see elements of the stag in the lines that marked Jack’s shoulders and chest, but there was far more to those lines than just representation.

They lived. They had power of their own.

It was the forest woven into his flesh.
And something else, although I could not immediately make it out.

Jack stood, his head cocked very slightly to one side, his entire presence so powerful and so beautiful I could not have looked away even if I had been commanded to do so. He shook his head very slightly, as if to clear it.

“Well?” said the Lord of the Faerie.

Jack straightened, and looked the Lord of the Faerie directly in the eye.

“You were right,” he said, and his voice, although low, seemed to vibrate with…not power—knowledge, maybe. “I feel entire, at home with both myself and the forest. Complete.”

T
he skin about the Lord of the Faerie’s eyes crinkled, the only sign of his deep emotion. “Then I am most pleased for you,” he said, his eyes trailing over Jack’s upper body.

The mark covered Jack’s shoulders (and also running a couple of inches down over the tops of his arms), the top part of his back, and the front of his chest; its wounds had already healed over into faded blue-black slightly raised lines, their meanderings partway between a tattoo and a scar. Although it had been a scant few minutes since Walter had finished, the mark looked as though it had been there for decades, fading into Jack’s flesh as if it were a living part of him.

The Lord of the Faerie ran one of his hands over the markings. “If you look at it one way,” he said softly, “you can see the spread of the stag’s antlers. But if you narrow your eyes and look another way, you can see…” His eyes slid up to meet Jack’s. “Then you can see the Ringwalk. Tell me, Jack, who are you now? Man, or stag? Kingman, or Ringwalker?”

Jack gave a slight smile. He opened his mouth, about to answer, but then he stilled.

His entire
being
stilled. And then the marks on his body moved slightly. They seemed to blur, and then
shift as if rearranging themselves more comfortably, but the movement was so slight that the Lord of the Faerie, watching, was not quite sure if the mark
had
moved, or if it was his imagination.

Jack lifted his head, and looked towards the eastern edge of the clearing, where stood a great beech and a scrubby crab apple. A moment later he strode over, leaned down, and hauled out a white-faced Grace.

The Lord of the Faerie made a sound partway between exasperation and surprise and walked over to where Jack held Grace, Malcolm following close behind the Faerie Lord.

Walter stayed at the stump. He appeared completely indifferent to what was happening at the edge of the clearing, concentrating instead on cleaning the instruments he had brought with him and putting them neatly back inside a leather satchel that he had kept to one side.

Jack was not sure whether to be angry or disturbed. He had grasped Grace by both her wrists, the sleeves of her coat pushed up to reveal her scars, his hands holding tightly enough that she couldn’t pull away, but not so tight that he would injure her. She appeared frightened. Her face was white, her blue eyes brilliant and wide, her pulse jumped under his fingers, her breath was fast and shallow.

Jack wasn’t prepared to go by appearances. Grace played the innocent well enough, but she was also a Darkwitch and a Mistress of the Labyrinth, and “innocence” did not sit well with either.

“Why are you here, Grace?” he said.

She swallowed. “I wanted to see what you and…Harry…”

Jack wondered why she wouldn’t refer to him as the Lord of the Faerie.

“…were up to. I knew something was up, and—”

“How did you know ‘something was up’?” Jack said. The Lord of the Faerie had moved very close now, alternating his concerned gaze between Jack and Grace.

Malcolm stood slightly to one side, holding Jack’s shirt, jacket and shoes and socks, and looking considerably less worried than either Jack or the Lord of the Faerie. Indeed, he looked mildly amused.

Grace tried to pull away and Jack tightened his grip.

“How did you know ‘something was up’?” he repeated, his voice harder now. “Why track me down, first at Faerie Hill Manor and then here?
How did you know?
”

Malcolm made as if to say something, but Jack shot him a hard glance, and Malcolm shut his mouth.

“I had seen you with the Lord of the Faerie, with Harry, talking. I—”

“We never talked of this before you,” said the Lord of the Faerie. His entire being had tensed, and he had subtly aligned his body with that of Jack’s.

“Yes, you did,” said Grace. “You spoke of it over the breakfast we shared at Faerie Hill Manor.”

Jack didn’t know what to think. How had she known it was tonight?

“My parents knew about it,” Grace went on, “but they did not speak of it to me. Oh gods, I just
knew,
Jack! Not any specifics, just that…there was something happening. I could sense it.”

To one side, Malcolm smiled again, very slightly.

“Why not just ask, Grace?” Jack said. “Why sneak about? Why hide behind the trees? Why didn’t you just walk out and say, ‘Here I am, may I watch?’”

“Because you would have sent me away,” said Grace softly, and in this statement, at least, Jack could see truth.

“And so what did you think, Grace?” he said. “What did you make of what you saw?”

Again she tried to pull away from him, and again he had to tighten his hands. Her eyes flickered over his upper body, and he could feel her tension.

“That you are very strange,” she whispered, “and that I am very much afraid of you right now, and of what I may have done.”

“What you may have done?” said Jack.

“Everything, everyone I touch is corrupted with Catling,” said Grace. “I tie their fate to hers.”

“My fate is already tied to Catling’s,” Jack said. “I can’t imagine anything you could do that would further damn me. The marking was perfect, Grace. It has not been ‘corrupted’.”

He could see she didn’t believe it, and he wondered again how much of this frailty was genuine, and how much an act. For gods’ sakes, he should never forget that she was a Darkwitch.

“I’m sorry,” said Grace, “but you should know…Catling was here, too. She witnessed this.”

To one side, Malcolm was looking anywhere but at Jack or Grace.

Jack’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t immediately say anything. He was certain very little went on that Catling didn’t know about. She
was
the Troy Game incarnate, after all, and her tendrils probably spread under most of the land by now. She would have known, in any case.

His silence had obviously further disconcerted Grace, for she stuttered on as if to fill the void: “She said…she said that…that I was doing only what was needed. By watching…I think.”

“Well, then,” said Jack, “at least we haven’t annoyed her, have we?”

“Jack?” said the Lord of the Faerie.

Jack did not reply, looking only at Grace. “Who are
you?” he said, very softly. Then his hands tightened about Grace’s wrists so that she gasped, and the marks on his upper body blurred, and then shifted.

They moved, flowing down both his arms like living lines of ink, circling his wrists, then cascading over his hands and onto Grace’s flesh.

She cried out and jerked back, but could not free herself from Jack’s grip.

Malcolm, his face intense, stepped forward, the Lord of the Faerie also moving closer. Both men had their eyes riveted on Grace’s wrists.

Jack’s marks encircled Grace’s wrists and then seeped into her scars, filling them with their liquid blue-black.

Grace cried out once more, and renewed her twisting, but Jack held her so tightly she could not free herself.

Then the liquid blue-black receded, climbing back over Jack’s hands, up his arms, and, within a moment, reverting to their faded appearance about his upper body.

Abruptly, Jack let Grace go, and she stumbled back a pace or two, rubbing at her wrists.

“You are a mystery,” Jack said, his voice puzzled. “I cannot make you out. Either you are completely shuttered, or you are utterly transparent. I cannot for the life of me
understand
you. But the marks see no harm in you. No harm at all.”

“Of course not,” said Malcolm. “Is that not what I discovered?”

Jack shot him a glance that was part exasperated, part irritated. Then he looked over to Walter. “You have your car here? Yes? Then will you drive Grace back into London?”

“I have no obligation to you any more,” said Walter. “I have done what you asked. I am free of you.”

“Indeed, you have no obligation to me,” Jack snapped. “I am asking this of your goodwill only, not from any sense of
damned
obligation owed!”

Then he looked back to Grace. “Go back to London, Grace. Go home.”

“Jack,” she said, “I’m sorry about Catling.”

“Everyone is sorry about Catling,” he said. “It is not a burden you need to carry alone.”

She opened her mouth to speak again, but Jack tipped his head towards Walter. “Go,” he said, and Grace nodded, and walked over to Walter.

Within a moment they were gone, walking westwards through the forest towards the main road.

Jack finally took the shirt Malcolm had been patiently holding and slipped it on.

“Coel,” he said to the Lord of the Faerie, using the man’s ancient name, “why was Grace so unsure of you in this form?”

“Grace has not been to the Faerie since she was a baby,” the Lord of the Faerie said. “She has not seen me as the Lord of the Faerie for a very, very long time.”

“Why has she not been back to the Faerie, Coel?”

“We thought to keep her away because…”

“Ah,” Jack said softly, doing up the buttons of his shirt. “In case she further contaminated you, yes?”

The Lord of the Faerie’s face tightened, but he did not respond to Jack’s jibe.

“And now, Jack?” he said.

“Now I need to go see Catling,” Jack said. “Wait for me in Faerie Hill Manor, Coel, and ask Noah to meet with us there at dawn. Malcolm. My shoes, if you please.”