“Hendricks?”
It was Mal’s voice, or more likely Sandy’s; it was hard to tell the difference through the heavy oak door. Coby turned the key and drew back the bolts. Mal stood there, swaying on his feet, his shirt gleaming dark and wet in the candlelight to match his hose.
“What happened?” she cried. “Oh, sweet Jesu, you’re covered…”
She peered around him, but there was no one on the stair.
“I don’t think they’ve broken in yet.” He placed his bloody hands on her shoulders. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“We need to finish what Jathekkil started.”
He glanced back at their captive, then down at the floor. She followed his gaze. The cellars, full of gunpowder.
“You will have to be careful, on the way down–”
“No. I can’t leave you here,” she said. “Mal, please–”
He put a finger to her lips.
“I am Erishen. I must finish this.”
“No.” She backed away from him and went to put her arm around Kit, but he ran over to his father and flung his arms about his knees.
“Amayi.”
Mal ruffled the boy’s hair, just the way she had seen her brother-in-law do so many times.
“Where’s Sandy?” When he did not reply, she went to the door. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” Mal said. “I told you, I am Erishen now. And you must go. Take Kiiren. Quickly!”
She took Kit’s hand and was about to lead him away when her nerve broke. She ran back to her husband – if he still was her husband – and kissed him on the cheek, then turned her back and walked out with Kit in tow. After a while, however, it was Kit who led the way, since she could see nothing for the tears in her eyes.
“Come on, Mamma, we have to be quick! They’ll be here soon.”
He leapt down the stairs like a young mountain goat and she could only stumble after him, her heart a dead weight in her chest. What evil magic had transferred Erishen into her beloved Mal?
She had no time to wonder further, however. As they reached the exit to the great hall, the archways of the dividing wall lit up as the outer doors beyond burst into flame. She pulled Kit down the next turn of the spiral stair and watched with a pounding heart as monstrous creatures loped or flew or slithered across the hall and up the stairs, intent on their prey. Mal. She started back after them as if in a dream.
“No, Mamma! We have to do what Erishen – what Father asked of us. Or we will all die for nothing.”
“How can you…” She broke off, shaking her head. This was all too much to take in.
They continued on down the dark stairs, Coby trailing after the ancient creature in the shape of her son. All her family, taken from her by those… things. She would gladly destroy them all.
When they reached the level of the great hall she told Kit to stay there and hide in the shadows, and went on without him.
Gunpowder. Why did it have to be gunpowder? She had never trusted the foul stuff, not since that day at the theatre. Mal had forced her to learn to use a pistol, to try and overcome her fear, but the sharp stink of the stuff still made her feel queasy. Still, she did as she had been instructed, taking a small keg and laying trails from each of the main stacks of barrels to the entrance, and then pouring a single trail from the threshold to the foot of the stairs. Further than that she could not go, not without proper fuses and she did not know how to set those. It would have to be enough.
She took out flint and tinder, and coaxed it into flame. With a whispered prayer she dropped it onto the end of the gunpowder trail and fled up the stairs without a backward glance. Scooping up Kiiren she ran across the great hall, through the ashes that were all that remained of the doors, and down the outer stair to the innermost ward. To her surprise Ned was there, with an unconscious – or perhaps dead – Gabriel in his arms.
“Run!” She pelted past him towards the old banqueting hall, where the ambassador’s reception had been held. Its door stood open, its temporary roof awaiting repairs for King Henry’s coronation. Coby stumbled and almost dropped Kiiren, but regained her footing and made it into the scant shelter of the ancient walls as the first explosion rumbled through the ground beneath her feet. Smoke and sparks poured out of the arrow-slit windows, and the thunder rolled on as one stack after another went up.
“Kiiren. Can you reach your amayi? With a… a tunnel of light?”
“I think so.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. “I’m scared, Mamma.”
“I know, lambkin. Just try your best.”
He closed his eyes again. Coby sat back on her heels, clasped her hands at her breast and prayed.
There was only one way to fight Shawe’s creatures: on their own terms. They had learnt to dreamwalk whilst waking, to bend the world to their will as easily as a young skrayling shapes his dreams. The idea had never occurred to Erishen before, but now he had seen it with his own eyes, it appeared absurdly simple. This feeling would not last for long, though, he also knew that. It was the last echo of the soul-joining, reverberating through his mind and putting his thoughts out of joint. For these few moments, he knew how they did it, and he could do it too. He just had to make the feeling last until the girl had destroyed them all.
He turned and stood to face the door, hearing the rattle of claws upon the stairs. With a thought he turned the door to close-dressed stonework, sealing the entrance just as he had seen the first sorcerer do in Ilianwe’s chamber. The creatures howled in rage and the stones trembled, shivering into tiny fragments that spilled down the stairs around their feet. The foremost of them filled the doorway, human once more apart from black leathery wings that sprouted from his back.
Erishen folded his arms.
“Is that the best you can come up with? A Christian devil out of the bible our father used to read from? I am not one of your human victims.”
The devil folded its wings, and the horns that had begun to sprout from its temples retracted back into its skull.
“You are not one of us.”
“No? Then how can I do this?”
Erishen glanced towards the canopied bed. The sheets and blankets rose up and flew at the dreamshaper, threatening to smother him. At the last moment the youth raised his hands and they melted into a storm of white down, as though someone had burst a pillow. The dreamshaper spat out a feather.
“Enough of these games. Where is the puppet king?”
“You mean Jathekkil? Poor fellow, he went to all that trouble to gain the throne and now everyone wants to rule through him.”
“He is weak, and lacking in vision. Our master knew humans far better.”
“Master Shawe.”
The dreamshaper laughed. “Not that dabbler in potions and elixirs. Master Fox, who brought us together. Until you killed him.”
“Tanijeel.”
“Yes. He told us what humans are capable of, and what we should do to them.”
“And Olivia. Ilianwe. What about her? Is she your leader now?”
The boy shrugged. “We do not need her anymore.”
She was dead, then; perhaps seeking reincarnation at this very moment. She was a survivor, after all.
A rumbling beneath their feet made the dreamshaper look around.
“I’m afraid you’re too late,” Erishen said, glancing towards the heavy wooden chest in which he had concealed the young prince. “In a few moments this entire castle will explode, and there’s rather a lot of steel armour and weaponry on the floor below. Your chances of survival are minimal.”
He reached out to Kiiren and opened a tunnel into the dreamlands.
“Farewell.”
As he stepped through, he felt something catch at his heels. Damn it, they were following him! He rolled over on the dry grass, kicking at the claw-like hands grasping his ankles. Winged things shot overhead as the dreamshapers made their desperate escape. Erishen looked around to see Kiiren at the far end of the tunnel, arms out, beckoning. No!
With the last fragments of magic at his command he slammed the exit shut before his opponents could get to it. It was a gamble, but he suspected that without Tanijeel or Ilianwe to aid them they were trapped in here. Trapped in the endless night of the dreamlands, for he would not open a door for them no matter what they did to him. Of course, first they had to catch him. Falling onto all fours he transformed into a silver hound and coursed away across the grass, his enemies in hot pursuit.