The Tower of Bones (49 page)

But how could they escape? They were lost and powerless,
free-floating, as if trapped within a dream. And then, as one, they saw Alan. He was clutched in the left hand of the titan. It was impossible to see whether he was still conscious or not. The titan must still be attempting to draw on the First Power, but Alan seemed to be resisting any manipulation. The oraculum in his brow looked dead. Mo was whispering to herself …

‘True believers – if you can hear me …?’

We hear you, child.

‘What can we do to help Alan?’

The situation is fraught with peril, not only for your friend but for all that is blessed in this world. Escape is not possible through deliberate machination.

‘There must be something we can do.’

You must trust to Fate.

‘Fate?’

Was it not Fate that brought you to this world? And allowed your companion to resurrect the King of Dragons? Is the Fáil not another word for this same almighty power?

‘I don’t understand.’

Think you the Fáil will take kindly to such violent attempts at forced entry? Let Fate decide what it will. Meanwhile, you are threatened merely by proximity to what will be. You are within the threshold of the gods.

Mo’s eyes drifted to the stars within the vast metamorphosing clouds. There was an idea that was close to consciousness, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Her heart
palpitated with a new fear. The stars appeared to be moving. She watched them, sensing that there must be something deeper, more important, that she was failing to grasp.

She whispered, urgently: ‘Kate – you must call the dragon.’

‘But how?’

How could she wake Driftwood out of his stupor?

‘Use your oraculum.’

Kate summoned up every fibre of what courage she had left: ‘Driftwood – if you can hear me – you have to wake up!’

Her eyes followed Mo’s to the stars. They were aligning themselves into patterns.

The movement of the stars worried her. They couldn’t be real stars, not suns out in the far reaches of space. Perhaps what she was seeing were images created by her own mind, symbols that represented something else entirely. And now the massive cloud formations were also changing. They were aligning about the focus of the ovoid. There was something about the patterns of the clouds, and the stars within them, that seemed frighteningly purposive.

The dragon groaned, as if waking up.

‘Wake up, Driftwood – please.’

Kate’s frightened eyes returned to the portal. She didn’t dare to attempt to make contact with the mind, or intelligence, that was harboured there.

She heard a rumbling incantation. Driftwood’s eyes were blinking open – that sideways movement of the membrane she recalled.

If only she understood what was happening!

The danger, she sensed, was enormous and imminent.

Kate – girl-thing …

‘Driftwood – thank God! There are frightening things going on all around us. I sense that it’s important that I understand. But I don’t understand a thing.’

Girl-thing must flee!

‘I can’t. Alan is trapped by the titan – and Mo is here too.’

Beside her, Kate saw that Mo’s eyes were closed. There was a brilliance clutched between her fingers. Something pulsating, like … like the stars! The stars were pulsating in synchrony with what was glowing between Mo’s fingers. And the movement of those stars was speeding up. Kate couldn’t stop her jaw trembling as she spoke. ‘Mo – talk to me. Tell me what’s going on!’

Mo whispered: ‘The True Believers are following the lines of Fate.’

Oh, God!

Kate knew that she was going to die here, in this terrible and incomprehensible landscape, along with her friends.

Mo whispered again: ‘I think they’re joining up in a kind of communion.’

Then everything was moving in a frantic whirl around her. The stars were raining down on the figure of the
titan, whose battering movements were faltering, slowing to a halt. It was all the more terrifying that it was happening in utter silence, as if the titan’s screams were also being consumed. The stars were flowing along the arcs of force emerging from the portal. These were passing through the radiant substance of Fangorath – and in passing through him they were consuming him. His being, his soul being, was disintegrating.

Something long and sinewy lashed itself around Kate and Mo. They were spiralling through the air. Kate’s heart faltered. In the silent pandemonium, overwhelmed by the violence that engulfed her, she was vaguely aware that another being was being pinned down close by them.

I so hope and pray it’s Alan!

Then a dizzying sense of movement, movement so rapid she felt physically sick. She was blacking out. She welcomed the fading of her senses. The terror of what was happening was too much to bear.

Kate gazed about herself, bewildered by the valley that was already greened with wild grasses to mid calf.
Am I really responsible for that?
It seemed impossible to believe that this was the valley of the Tower of Bones. She had awoken in the dark, bewildered and alarmed, next to the sleeping forms of Alan and Mo. In her nostrils was the scent of wild flowers. She had sensed that Driftwood was nearby, though it had been pitch dark and impossible to see. The continuing messages of her senses had confused her. Her memories had confused her even more. She had lifted Alan’s unconscious head onto her lap and … and had dozed off again. And now she had woken with a start to realise that dawn was breaking and Mo had disappeared. Meanwhile the world about her had turned to pandemonium.

Gargs! Thousands of them – maybe tens of thousands!

They were everywhere, in the air, alighting and taking
off again. She hadn’t noticed how they made a sound when flying. A flapping noise like swans, and sometimes a loud knocking sound like pigeons, when their wings, or maybe it was the claws on their wings, struck together with a particularly strong beat. Perhaps it was some kind of signal? Clusters of them were busy in the grass, doing things she failed to grasp, and making deep-throated humming sounds amongst themselves. She could even smell them, some secretion of all those thousands of bodies, but it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. It was a … a vaguely homely smell, like the musky sweat of horses after a hard ride, or maybe the hot smell of Darkie, when she had hugged her dog after one of their walks by the river.

Oh, Darkie – how I miss you and Bridey!

Iyezzz was somewhere out there among them. He had brought her a drink in a brown-and-cream-coloured nautilus shell – a fermentation that smelt briny and sweet at the same time, probably a mixture of things she didn’t want to know about from the depths of the oceans, sweetened with honey. Was it possible that the Gargs were getting merry on it? It hardly seemed to fit with the images of Gargs she recalled from their duty at the Tower. But then nothing seemed to fit any more.

Her eyes searched for Mo and Turkeya, finding them wandering through the grass in the distance, looking no doubt for herbs to collect. Briefly, surreptitiously, she gazed back over her shoulder, as if to confirm the dragon was
still there. Though perhaps fifty yards distant there was no doubting his presence. He was so huge he seemed to press against all of her senses, even when she wasn’t directly looking at him. His proximity stirred her but it also provoked a sense of guilt, knowing why such a strange and monstrous creature was waiting patiently in the meadow of grasses and wild flowers.

Alan woke, sitting up beside her. Kate put her arm about his shoulders, her eyes blinking slowly, still clearing themselves of what felt like the deepest sleep. A breeze blew about them, scattering pollen. She had another, longer, look around her. Nearby Qwenqwo and Ainé were keeping a close watch on the activity of the Gargs. In the distance, in his human form, Nightshade lifted his head and their eyes met. He must have been waiting for her to wake. Now he held her gaze for several moments before transforming into the shape of the wolf and loping wordlessly away.

‘Is it really over, Kate?’

Alan was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. She laid her head against his shoulder, relieved to hear his voice. ‘Don’t you remember what happened?’

‘I remember some of it – I remember the attack.’

‘You did it, Alan. You destroyed the Witch.’

Climbing to her knees, Kate compressed her lips while running her fingers through his ash-grimed hair.

He said: ‘I remember that much. But then …’

She held his face, gazing into his eyes. ‘It was the titan,
Fangorath, all along. He was controlling her. He tried to feed off you.’

Alan looked down at the grasses sprouting between his outstretched feet. He pulled out a grass-head and stuck the stalk between his teeth. Kate was startled at the passion of recall his action elicited – a memory of their climb to the top of the Comeragh Mountains, that day when they sensed the calling for the first time … But here and now Alan had just spotted Driftwood. He was staring at the recumbent figure of the dragon, the grass stalk tumbling from his open mouth.

‘That what I think it is?’

Kate nodded.

‘Fangorath was too powerful to be destroyed by the First Power. You must have put two and two together – realised that he was feeding off you. We saw how you stopped the oraculum.’ She couldn’t keep the jitter of nervousness out of her voice. He knew her too well not to notice. And the same tension had entered her hand now as she brushed his upturned stubbly cheek.

Alan frowned. ‘But the Witch was destroyed by then?’

‘Yes.’

‘So – the titan was controlling her, and not the other way round?’

‘Fangorath planned to take over the Fáil.’

‘What?’ Alan was dumbfounded. He climbed, a little shakily, to his feet and gazed down at her.

Kate nodded. ‘Mo and I, we saw what happened.’

‘You saw the portal?’

‘Yes. You were unconscious.’ Kate spoke softly, anxious not to distress him. ‘Fangorath tried to break into it.’

‘Heck – and I don’t recall a thing!’

‘It’s probably as well.’ Kate wished that she had no memory of those terrifying events. Mo had talked about Dromenon but to Kate it had seemed more like hell. ‘If Fangorath had succeeded he’d have taken you through with him.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘Thank goodness he didn’t.’

Alan was silent for several moments, shocked. ‘Why would Fangorath – a demigod – want to take over the Fáil?’

‘I don’t know.’

He shook his head. ‘What stopped him?’

Kate shook her head. ‘It became really strange. Fate intervened. Or so Mo said.’

‘Mo?’

‘Mo is changing, Alan. She has some new amulet – she calls it the Torus. She hears voices coming out of it. They told her it was something to do with Mórígán, how she broke the rules to stop Fangorath a long time ago.’

Alan stared about himself, utterly bemused.

Kate kissed him, holding him close. She recalled the extraordinary scene again, the impression of vastness – of dangerous, implacable power. It was only natural that they were all feeling somewhat overwhelmed by things. She lifted her head to gaze into the near distance, as if
to reassure herself that the Tower really was gone. Where it had stood was nothing more than an ash-covered hole in the ground.

Alan was staring up into her eyes. He needed more explanation. She said, ‘If it will help, it all happened in Dromenon. There were beings that looked like stars.’

He nodded slowly. ‘True believers!’

‘That’s what Mo called them. Their voices were coming to her though the Torus.’ Kate hugged him tight again. ‘You encountered them earlier yourself. You told me about it.’

‘Yes, I did. When Valéra was dying.’ He sat erect, looked at her, brushed her blustering hair from her eyes. ‘It was kind of frustrating. They talked in riddles.’

Kate laughed. He managed a wan smile. It was so lovely to see him smile again. ‘From what Mo was telling me, they haven’t changed.’

Kate so wanted to hold onto this moment.

All of a sudden there were cries of excitement from the Gargs. Glancing over, she saw that the Garg king, Zelnesakkk, had arrived, alighting among the milling throng of his subjects. Iyezzz strode forward to greet him, going down onto one knee before his father. The King reached out and brushed his son’s brow. Kate saw Iyezzz point with a wing talon in their direction, then indicate with a widespread flourish of wings the landscape with its profusion of life.

Alan sighed, climbing to his feet, brushing ash from
his hair and clothing. He extended an arm to help Kate to her feet. ‘I’m going to have to talk to them.’

‘There’s something I need to do as well.’

‘Is that why the dragon is waiting?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You’re going to leave me already?’

‘The Cill helped save me from the Witch. But the Momu is dying. The Witch all but destroyed her people.’

‘And you think you can cure her?’

‘I might be able to help.’

‘How?’

‘I’m not sure. I just know I must try.’ She hugged him again, tightly, fiercely. ‘I hope I won’t have to leave you for long.’ She hesitated. ‘You could come with me?’

‘I wish I could. But the Tyrant is still out there.’ His head fell and he looked deeply thoughtful. ‘And there’s some unfinished business with the Kyra.’

Kate looked into his eyes and sighed.

‘Hey, I know.’ He brushed the back of his hand against her face. ‘We’re going to need the help of the Gargs. Will you help me – come speak to the King with me? He’s more likely to listen if we do it together.’

‘Of course I will. Just give me a few minutes.’

Kate stared at the great shape, laid down in a bed of long grass in the shade of a feathery leafed tree, with those enormous orange eyes patiently watching her. The others, Qwenqwo, Mo, the Shee, and most especially the Gargs, were keeping a respectful distance from the dragon. She
went onto tiptoe to kiss Alan’s lips, before walking through the field of ash, leaving footprints as if in virgin snow.

When the time came, Kate couldn’t bear to hug Alan again before turning to face the dragon. She left Alan preoccupied in conversation with the King and Iyezzz, and she hugged Mo and Turkeya instead, and said goodbye to the Kyra, Ainé, and of course, the dwarf mage, Qwenqwo, whose emerald eyes bristled with tears. Iyezzz had assured Alan that the Gargs would assist the party in getting back to the beach head. They would also help the main army find a new route out of the bridgehead and into the main landmass of the Southern Wastelands, from where Alan and Ainé would begin the coming campaign of all-out war against the Tyrant and his armies. And so, with all the loose ends tied up here, Kate finally approached the dragon, who waited patiently for her in the long grass, observing her every move.