A shriek shocked him out of his thoughts. He heard groaning and grinding in the bowels of the building. The nearest of the pursuing Fellows was still many floors below. It would be some time before they arrived. Yet Will was forced to search each landing before moving on, listening warily now so as to be certain that no ambush awaited him and to make sure that Chlu could not double back and slip past him.
Will could not easily tell how high he had climbed. All he knew was it was a long way. His breath came in gasps and his legs ached. And there was that foetid smell again, something vile that carried down on the draughts lacing these dismal corridors.
As the Spire narrowed, so the fear of Maskull weighed more heavily on Will’s mind. He cast about for ways to encourage himself. ‘Chlu thinks I fear the Sightless Ones,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘He chose this as his refuge because he thought I wouldn’t come here. I bet he hasn’t counted on being hunted down. He hasn’t bargained for this!’
He clenched his fists. No fear, not even the fear of Maskull, would undermine him. This time Chlu was going to have to turn at bay. This time he would be brought to account.
Something heavy lashed out at him from the gloom. Will ducked and it glanced off the top of his head. A length of chain clanged then pulled taut, wrapping itself in a spiral grip around the nearest pillar. He saw his chance and slammed his fist into Chlu’s face, but Chlu put his head down and Will felt the bones of his hand jar in pain as his punch connected instead with the bow of Chlu’s skull. Chlu roared and charged him down onto the filthy floor, then reached out again for his weapon. But Will kicked out with his foot and the force of the blow threw him back. They both watched as, between them, the chain unwound itself from the pillar, snaked slackly over the side of the staircase and vanished.
It was as if a spell had been broken. They roared at one another and came to grips again, falling down, rolling over and over. Dust swirled up, stinging throat and eyes and blurring everything that Will saw. His knuckles were soon skinned raw, but every punch he landed drew a reply and every kick a counter. Thoughts of the aid that magic might give in the moment of last resort were no comfort to Will, for he knew that powers taken for granted were powers that betrayed. And when Chlu put a deadly hold on his neck, he found he could not summon the power. Try as he might he could not ask in the right way and his escape was made only through the explosive strength that desperation put in him.
They slid across the floor in opposite directions. Chlu fell against the steps, winded and dazed, but he was up first. He drew something from the back of his belt and held it before him like a dagger in the shaft of light.
Will struggled on heels and elbows. He was gasping for breath and half-blind in a haze of dust and dry bird-lime, but he had seen the deadly spike clearly enough – it was Chlu’s unused crossbow bolt.
He put out a hand behind him and found – clear space – no rails, no banister, nothing but a thin current of foul air falling from above into which his fingers grasped emptily. He froze, suddenly knowing his peril, for he saw that he was lying on the edge of the precipice. It would take barely a touch to send him over. If Chlu were only to toe-poke him he would go spinning down into the dark, and that would be the end. A powerful fear surged up inside him. How quickly the tables had turned, and how faulty had been the inner feelings that Gwydion had so often recommended. Where Chlu was concerned, it seemed, such warnings were no help.
Terror filled his mind as Chlu came forward and rose over him menacingly. The weird light from above enfolded them. Will gasped.
‘Llyw, no!’
The Dark Child froze. He flinched back as echoes died on the air like a faint detonation – the noise of the chain hitting the bottom far below. It was followed by distant voices calling out in confusion. Will’s dust-filled eyes stung, but he could see that Chlu had begun to back away from the stairwell. A groan escaped him, and then he turned and fled.
Will rolled away from the edge. He coughed, tried to wave away the dust, got to his feet and sought the safety of the wall. He found that he was shaking as he drank in the relief that flooded through him. What had driven Chlu off? The effect had been almost magical, as if some bogeyman of the Fellowship had appeared and frightened him away.
But there was nothing to be seen. The Vigilants were far below, and there was no monster here, nothing save dust and the shafts of light cutting the scene at crazy angles. And then he realized what it must have been – he had pronounced Chlu’s name in the old tongue of the west. The name had worked the trick, for had not Gwydion warned him never to speak Chlu’s true name? If he ever did so as part of a spell, then his own doom would be sealed also.
He spat and laughed thinly. Blood soaked his sleeve. He was cut and bruised, but no serious damage had been done.
I have Chlu’s true name, he told himself, thinking out the consequences. And now he knows that, he’ll believe he’s in my power. He’ll think that I’ve already won. How desperate he’ll be – and how dangerous! I mustn’t underestimate him again, and I mustn’t forget that he’s a match for me in head and hand, however much our hearts may differ.
He gathered himself ready to press on up the stair, then saw there was blood in the dust. Big drops, red as rubies. He smeared fingers across his own wounded cheek. But, no – this blood was not his own.
And there were new sounds now – scuffling sounds – this time from above. Then a muffled screeching set Will’s teeth on edge. What was Chlu doing? Moving something heavy to the edge, ready to pitch it down the stair?
No…
When he rounded the next corner a flood of daylight came from above. This was no tiny brown-glazed pore opening on the outside world, no mean-spirited lancet pierced through the fabric of the building. This was direct light – full sunshine. The hairs were lifting on Will’s neck. He screwed up his eyes and half turned away from the gust of warm, filthy air that assailed his senses as the landing opened onto a scene of horror.
Here were a dozen hunchbacked figures, part-man, part-bird, creatures that might have been made long ago by vile sorcery out of some vain desire to fly. The beasts stood no taller than children. They wore coats of quills, and their heads were wrinkled and pink. So cruel and quarrelsome were their manners that they took Will’s breath away. They danced excitedly, snapping at one another and ripping at the open ribcage of a corpse that lay between them. The creatures were fighting over what was inside. Mottled brown wings opened and flapped as they strove to drive one another away from the carrion. But despite their preoccupation with the ghastly feast they nevertheless took notice of Will as he mounted the final stair.
They did not bear the interruption well, hissing and spitting at him, their pink-and-grey snouts sneering up to reveal long yellow eye-teeth. Will stared, horrified by the scene. If this was the Bier of Eternity, Will knew, then these must be the bone demons who came here to strip the bodies of flesh. The mortal remains of some high officer of the Fellowship had been stretched out upon a grey granite funerary bed and elaborately chained there. The Bier was low, its edge no higher than Will’s knee. It was carved with token-words and with locks and skulls and other symbols of death, and Will saw that the decayed corpse had been presented like an offering upon a grim altar. Over it all a pale canopy was spread, splashed now with the liquor of death and tattered by violence.
As Will’s eyes took in the scene, the creatures began to make menacing advances. They bounded towards him, testing him by darting in and out. Then, as if at a signal, they rushed him all at once, leaping forward in a flurry of clawing and ripping.
Will threw them off, then took up the only weapon that lay to hand – a thigh bone. He slashed back and forth, seeing that he must drive them back, that an all-out attack was his only hope.
He