The Copper Promise (9 page)

‘You have broken the seals!’ cried the first. ‘The final seals! She is stirring!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Wydrin had drawn both her daggers. ‘Have you come back for another dance, worm-men?’

Gallo was laughing.

‘I am glad you find this amusing,’ snapped Frith. ‘But these creatures nearly killed us last time we met.’

‘Oh no,’ said Gallo. ‘The Culoss wouldn’t do that. Would you?’ he said, addressing them directly. He laughed again. ‘Spilt blood is far too dangerous in this place. Which reminds me.’ Moving faster than Frith would have believed possible, Gallo stepped up next to Sebastian and, drawing the wicked golden dagger from his belt, thrust the blade at his friend’s neck. The enamelled brooch that held Sebastian’s cloak turned the weapon from its killing thrust but the blade still sank into the knight’s breast. Blood, startlingly bright after so long in the dusty halls of the Citadel, poured forth in a red gush, spattering the floor and the clay jar in front of Sebastian. Frith saw the big knight’s eyes go wide with shock and pain, and then he fell to his knees. His hands went to the hilt now sticking from the thick muscle below his breastbone.

Wydrin screamed wordlessly and turned on Gallo, her daggers a deadly blur, but the blond man danced out of reach. He was still laughing, and there was a manic and terrible light in his eyes. Meanwhile, the Culoss were gathered around Sebastian on the floor.

‘What have you done?’ demanded Frith. The rumbling from below was back, only now it was falling and rising, falling and rising. Like a heartbeat.

‘She rises,’ said Gallo. ‘She rises, and she’s bringing an army with her.’

Wydrin flew forward again, fury in her eyes, and this time Frostling found purchase on Gallo’s arm, tearing into the flesh there, but he hardly seemed to feel it. Instead he turned and ran for the door.

Wydrin made to go after him, but Sebastian called her name from the floor. Already his voice was weak.

‘Leave him,’ he said. The Culoss stood shoulder to shoulder, whispering frantically with each other.

‘Why did he do that? Why?’ Wydrin looked lost, her face very pale under the lamplight. Frith knelt by Sebastian, trying not to show the dismay on his face. The Culoss had torn a piece from the big knight’s cloak and were pressing the fabric against the wound in his chest, but the front of his tunic was already soaked with blood, and it was rapidly pooling on the floor. Sebastian tried to lift himself up, but the pain was too great.

‘Try not to move,’ said Frith.

‘You,’ Wydrin grabbed hold of one of the Culoss and shook him fiercely, ‘you will tell me why he did that. What is going on here?’

For a moment it looked like the Culoss wasn’t going to answer, but he exchanged a look with the others, and sighed.

‘He was an agent of Y’Ruen, the last of the gods. Our prisoner.’

‘He wasn’t,’ said Sebastian. His voice was little more than a ragged whisper. ‘He was my – friend. He wasn’t an agent of anyone.’

‘Sebastian, don’t talk,’ said Wydrin. She released the Culoss and put her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘You’ll only make it bleed more.’

‘Take the knife out,’ said one of the Culoss, the one who had been first through the door.

‘No,’ said Frith. ‘If you remove the blade, he will bleed to death all the quicker. Tear the cloak into more strips, and then we will press the fabric to the wound. Pressure should help stem the flow.’ He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘But I want you to tell us the rest of it. Now.’

They shifted the big knight round to reach him better. Sebastian grunted with the pain, but did not scream. Frith had to admire that; he had done plenty of screaming, down in the dungeons.

‘Your friend with the golden hair. He was not an agent of Y’Ruen when he came here, no, no,’ said the Culoss as they tore Sebastian’s cloak into long strips. Frith held a wad of the fabric to the wound. ‘He wandered the Citadel, and she takes her agents where she can find them. It does not cost her much to take a mind.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Wydrin. ‘What is this Y’Ruen?’

‘She is the last god. She wants to be free.’ The Culoss wrung his hands together as he spoke. ‘For thousands of years Y’Ruen has been pushing at the boundaries, weakening the seals. Extending her influence. She is so close now. If this man dies—’

‘You are telling us that this Y’Ruen is a god, or something equating that, and it is somewhere beneath us?’ Frith could not keep the incredulity out of his voice. ‘If that was the case,
if the stories are true
, then where are the mages? Immortal, powerful beings sworn to keep the rebel gods trapped for ever?’

‘They could not live for ever, although they tried.’ The Culoss shook his head slowly. ‘In the end, their lake no longer worked. They began to grow old and weak, as all men. That is why they made us. To keep watch after they were gone, but now—’

‘But now you have broken the last four seals!’ The Culoss busily tearing Sebastian’s cloak into strips glared at them all. ‘The great final spell that is written in these books,’ he gestured at the mouldy library. ‘It is now useless.’

‘Why couldn’t Gallo break the seals?’ asked Wydrin. ‘He said he’d already broken into other jars …’

‘Lies,’ snapped another of the Culoss. ‘She cannot touch the sacred seals, no, and neither can her agents. He needed you to do it.’

‘When the last of this man’s life-blood falls onto the stones of the Citadel, Y’Ruen’s prison will finally be broken,’ added the first Culoss.

‘Then help us get him out of here,’ said Wydrin. ‘You know the way back better than us. If we hurry—’

‘He will be dead before you see daylight.’

They pulled Sebastian forward so that they could tie the bandages round his chest. The knight protested weakly.

‘I’m stronger than I look. I can make it. I can.’

‘No time,’ said the first Culoss. He wiped his bloody fingers on his own dusty bandages. ‘There is only the lake now. Pray that it has lost none of its properties.’

‘The lake?’ said Frith, sharply. ‘You know where it is?’

The Culoss nodded irritably.

‘What lake? What are you talking about?’ Wydrin pushed Sebastian’s long black hair back from his face. There was blood on his lips.

Frith stood up.

‘I’m talking about the whole reason I came here.’

His weight was heavy on her shoulders, and the stench of his blood thick in her nostrils. Every now and then she would gag, but Wydrin was determined not to vomit. She had seen many men bleed out, of course she had. More often than not she had been the cause of it too, but the blood of a friend was different from the blood of an enemy.

Sebastian groaned. He wanted to lie down, he said, just for a quick rest. Once he was rested, he told them, he would feel much better and they would move more quickly.

‘Here, hold this,’ she told him, pressing a bundle of fabric into the hand not resting against her shoulder. ‘Press it against your wound. You need to keep the pressure up.’

He did as he was told, although sluggishly.

‘How much further?’ demanded Frith. Two of the Culoss were helping Wydrin carry Sebastian while the other two walked in front, leading them down passageway after passageway. The flagstones and bricks of the room with the jars had disappeared some time ago, to be replaced with tunnels carved straight out of the living rock. The echoes were strange here, and twice Wydrin had been convinced that something was following them. Their way was lit by strange gatherings of luminescent moss that had colonised the ceiling, giving everything a yellowed, watery hue.

‘Not far now,’ said the lead Culoss. He’d told them that his name was Marshum. ‘How is the knight?’

Wydrin glanced up at Sebastian’s face. He was staring down at the hilt of the dagger sticking out of his chest as though he didn’t quite know what it was. His face was parchment white, and there were ominous dark circles under his eyes.

‘How do you think he’s doing? He’s bleeding like a stuck pig!’

‘He must not die,’ warned Marshum. ‘His life-blood must not be shed on these stones.’

‘I’m not that keen on the idea myself,’ said Sebastian, but so weakly only Wydrin could hear it.

They walked on. Wydrin, more than a head shorter than Sebastian, was soon sweating, her hair plastered to her forehead.
So heavy
, she thought
. I should tell him to leave the sword behind, but he’ll need that. If I let him lose it I’ll never hear the last of it.
Besides, she dare not stop, not even for a moment. If she did she wasn’t sure she could get him up again, and then if what the Culoss said was true, they would all die down here. Instead, she concentrated on the ragged sound of Sebastian’s breathing and the steady tap, tap, tap of Frith’s walking stick; it apparently took a lot to tire the lord of the Blackwood.

It was just as Wydrin could no longer feel her feet and her shoulders were screaming with agony, that the Culoss in front gave a small cry of triumph. They stumbled out of the tunnels and onto a set of wide stone steps. At first Wydrin wanted to kick them; what were they so excited about? More steps to shuffle down, so what? But then she heard Frith exclaim too, a hoarse bark of something that was almost laughter. Wydrin lifted her weary head, and for a brief second she forgot about the ache in her back and the blood soaking into her clothes.

They stood at the entrance of an enormous cavern, the biggest space she had ever seen. The ceiling was lost in darkness, the craggy walls to either side partially obscured by a rolling mist. And spreading out below them was the Mages’ Lake.

‘This is it!’ cried Frith. ‘I knew I would find it.’

‘The Culoss found it,’ pointed out Wydrin, although in truth she barely knew what she was saying. She couldn’t take her eyes off the lake. It was the bright blue of the Creosis Sea, shimmering under the hottest summer’s day – no, brighter than that. It was lit from within with its own strange light, so that the surface fractured and glimmered like diamonds. After a few seconds she had to look away; the lake drew her eyes and seemed to feast on them, something that frightened her badly.

‘Why is it moving?’ she asked through numb lips. ‘Shouldn’t it be still?’

‘The magic contained within is as lively as ever,’ said Marshum. ‘Which is all to the good. Quickly now, we must get the knight into the water.’

They began to shuffle down the steps, but Frith held up a hand.

‘I will go first,’ he said. There was a hunger in his voice. ‘To test it. After all, we don’t know how it might have changed over the last thousand years.’

‘Oh no,’ cried Marshum. ‘The power is limited. Only one can bathe in its magic, only one every ten years. The mages made it so.’

‘Why would they do that?’ The look on Frith’s face was a dangerous one. Instinctively, Wydrin put a hand on the pommel of her dagger.

‘To ensure that no single mage became more powerful than the others. The effects of the lake are – extreme, addictive. It would be much too tempting to go back again and again, growing younger and more powerful with each exposure. The mages made it so that once one of them had taken of its gifts, they would all have to wait another ten years before they could do it again.’

‘That cannot be!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Wydrin dragged Sebastian down another step, and another. The blue waters of the lake were lapping at the bottom of the steps, kissing them with jewelled lips. ‘Just give me a bloody hand, will you?’

The Culoss rushed to her aid, but Frith just stood very still. His grey eyes were wide. The light from the lake made them look full of tears.

‘Help us, Frith!’

Beneath their feet the rumbling had returned, and it was growing stronger. Sebastian’s eyes were closed now, and Wydrin feared she could no longer hear his breathing.
I can’t hear it over my own, that’s all
, she told herself.
There’s still time.

They were ten feet away from the waters when she saw Frith reach within his cloak. She knew what he was doing before she even saw the greasy green ball in his hand.

‘No!’ she screamed, but it was too late. Frith threw the bomb just in front of them and the explosion threw them all back. Wydrin fell awkwardly against the steps and whacked her arm so hard she lost all feeling in it, while Sebastian rolled away from her. Of the Culoss, only two remained; the others were a confusion of dust and torn bandages.

She lifted her head just in time to see Frith walk into the shimmering waters.

The bejewelled waters of the lake swept hungrily over Frith’s boots, rising up over his ankles to his shins. His first confused impression was that it was hot, the temperature scalding him through the worn leather of his trousers – it was like a bath freshly drawn, too warm to be comfortable. The lights grew more lively, swarming around him like something alive, a shoal of hungry fish perhaps. He reached down and put his hands under the water – distantly he could hear Wydrin cursing him, but it was very far away – and his fingers tingled uncomfortably. Pulling off his gloves he could see that the tips of his fingers, scarred and wrinkled where Yellow-Eyed Rin had torn his fingernails off with pincers, were smoothing over. There was an odd pressure, and then a thin ellipsis of a hard material began to push through the flesh. His nails were growing back.

‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘It is working. I will be whole again …’

There was a tremendous crash from behind him, just as though the sky were caving in, and he heard Wydrin’s yelling take on a note of panic, but nothing could tear his gaze from the rippling waters. He thought he could hear voices now, whispering from further out in the lake.

‘Who are you?’ Frith took a few steps forward. The poorly healed bones in his leg began to throb, and he stumbled. ‘What do you want?’

‘What do
you
want?’ echoed the whispering voices.

‘Your power, your strength,’ he answered. The water was up to his waist now, rushing to run phantom fingers over every scar and fractured bone. He thought of Sebastian’s pale face and his blood-soaked tunic, but almost immediately the image was replaced with another; his younger brother Tristan, his small body beaten and broken. There was no turning back now.