The Red Queen (122 page)

I woke to something licking my face. I opened my eyes to see the lambent silver-grey eyes of a wolf. I gasped then, and groaned, for my whole body hurt. I could see nothing, but I remembered the fall, the earth fall.

‘Wake tha ElspethInnle,’ the mindvoice scythed uncomfortably into my mind.

‘Gobor,’ I beastspoke him. ‘How . . . what . . .?’

‘Rheagor did see that tha would have need of these ones. We did come by ways under the earth that one did see
seliga
/did show me. But the earth did shake and changed and a river of fire flowed. These ones were lost. Many drowned in fire but the boywolf came to show this one how to escape the fire. This one did lead the rest to ElspethInnle. These ones did dig tha free. Tha had the smell of death but it did not get in.’

‘Maruman . . .’

‘That one is broken but is still full of claw and bite. That one did bite the nose of the wolf that was digging it free!’ There was admiration and amusement in the wolf’s rough tone.

‘Gahltha . . .’

‘The wolves do strive to that large/hard to reach one.’

I struggled to sit, my heart beginning to pound with fear for the black horse. ‘Show me where he is?’

Gobor nudged me until I found one flank. But there was earth all around him and rocks as well. I gave a cry of horror at the realisation of how deeply he was buried. If his nose and mouth were blocked he would die before he could be uncovered.

I laid a hand on his flank and felt the pulse of his life, strong but dimming.

‘My dear one, hold on,’ I sent, and felt Maruman beside me. He was moving. I felt a little shower of earth and realised with pity and anguish that he was digging.

‘Maruman, my darling, stay with him. Be with him. I will get funaga to help,’ I sent. ‘I don’t think we are far from the surface.’

‘The burrows of the funaga-li do be close,’ Gobor sent. ‘These ones do not go there. The smell do be wrong.’

It must be the smell of the drugged fog dissipating after the destruction of the Omega Base, I thought, and felt a moment of intense sorrow for Sentinel. But then I thought of Gahltha, who might be the only other living creature who ever spoke with her.

‘Show me,’ I begged Gobor. I was aching all over and I could feel that my face was wet with blood, but I was not badly hurt. Or if I had been, my body had already healed itself. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious.

‘It do be behind tha,’ Gobor sent. ‘Up. But there do be funaga-li . . .’

People. The miners! I thought with intense relief, remembering Ika’s father. If I could free him and the other miners, they would have their tools. I would not waste time on talk. It would take too long to explain what had happened, and the wolves would terrify them. I would coerce them to help me if I must.

I turned and began to crawl upward. ‘I will return. Keep digging . . .’

I climbed, pushing through the earth until I felt a coolness against my cheeks and drew in a breath of cold, sweet air. There was an opening ahead, through which light and the sound of voices issued. I would have to dig to reach it, but it was not hard – the earth was soft and loose. The way must have collapsed in on itself when Sentinel was destroyed.

I saw a movement and heard a cry of astonishment. Light shone at me and I blinked, then lifted my hand to protect my eyes.

‘I need help,’ I said.

A smooth cold hand took mine and lifted me gently to my feet. Not a miner’s hand, I thought, and then the light shifted and fell on his face: beautiful, pale, cold.

Ariel.
The Destroyer.

‘Elspeth Gordie,’ he said. ‘What a feast of pain I have prepared for you.’

Terror and fury coiled in me and I clung to his hand and summoned the black sword, calling on the dark power at my core, but before it could do more than stir, Ariel nodded and someone struck me from behind.

Again, I fell into the dark.

The first thing I was aware of was the block, pressing heavily against my mind, constraining it, isolating it. Then I realised I was lying flat on my back, my wrists and ankles shackled somehow. I could not even move my head, and for one dizzying moment, I thought I was in a cryopod in Midland. But when I opened my eyes it was to dazzling morning light in a white room. I was lying on a bed, bound and tied down.

There was a slight figure sitting on a low stool in the corner, whom I recognised as the cloaked person from Ana’s memory of Ariel’s attack.

‘Who . . . who are you?’ I asked.

The figure did not move. It might have been a statue.

‘I am afraid my null does not speak,’ Ariel said, in his light, high, piping voice. ‘Of course, for me, that is one of her chief virtues. I always did prefer silent women. Though I miss the screams.’

I drew a shuddering breath and turned my head to see him sitting languidly on a window sill. Outside, not far away, I could see the bulbous head of one of the towers that bracketed the Infinity of Dragonstraat. I was in Redport.

Ariel turned his head, following my gaze. Then he smiled at me.

‘I have grown quite fond of this city. I fancy I will stay here for some time. As long as I have the Red Queen at my mercy, her people will be properly meek. They have had generations to learn how, and now, even though she commanded it, they will not move on me for fear of losing her. Is it not a delicious irony? The sight of her standing with a noose about her neck had an immediate and satisfyingly dampening effect on her people, so that my grateful Ekoni had no trouble at all regaining control.

‘Though the noose does seem somewhat shoddy and lacking in glamour. I am thinking of other ways to dangle her before them. There was a device in the Beforetime that cut off the heads of people very effectively and dramatically. A few tests will reveal its beauty and make it all the more delicious when their queen is forced to kneel and –’

‘Stop,’ I said quietly. A thousand curses had risen to my lips and then died there, because they were what he wanted. Ariel lived for pain and grief and terror. So I would starve him.

‘No matter what you do, I have stopped you getting to Sentinel. It is gone. No matter what you do, you will never have it, and maybe the emperor will be angry when his emissary tells him you do not have what you promised. Maybe your rule here will be as short as it is ugly.’

He laughed. It was so genuinely delighted and joyous a sound that I was silenced.

‘Why would he do me harm? Did I not save his emissary and entourage by sending them safely away before the Red Queen rose? Even now, the
Secret
is anchored in the bay. I sent the
Black Ship
to signal him to return, saying that it was safe.’ A flicker of petulance showed in his eyes and I was sure he was thinking about Salamander, who had refused to leave the
Black Ship
and so perished. Had he known what Salamander was, I wondered. Who? I thought of Salamander’s husky whisper –
I owe him that
– and thought he
had
known.

‘I fear your attention is wandering, Elspeth Gordie,’ Ariel said, too loudly. He had risen and stood rigid a moment, then he drew a deep breath and smoothed his pale hair, saying silkily, ‘I must not bore you. You see I want you to understand what I have achieved here. Of course, I never meant for the emperor to have control of Sentinel. That promise was only a means to an end. I wanted to get to him. But the fool refused to allow me into his kingdom until I offered him the key to a weapon he could not resist. I never meant him to have it, of course. Once I control the emperor, I will have access to weaponmachines aplenty and to arcane powers and a people who have retained mastery of them. With them I will rule the world. I may even discover another Sentinel, waiting to be wakened, for Sentinel was the child of the five powers, but they were not the only powers. The irony is that it was their mistrust of one another that destroyed their world.’

‘How . . . how do you know these things?’ I asked, bewildered. ‘Did you futuretell it all?’

‘Ah, now I have your attention.’ He crossed to the slight cloaked figure sitting in the corner. It did not react to his approach. He reached a long white hand down, grasped its chin and lifted its head. I saw the face of a child of about thirteen, very thin, with bad, greyish-looking skin and long, lank brown hair. Her eyes were pale as ash with dark brown circles under them. They looked at nothing. There was no expression at all in her face.

‘She was the first in a long line of nulls whose visions have guided me ever since I first saw Marisa Seraphim’s scribings,’ Ariel said. ‘She has been with me since I left Henry Druid’s encampment. I have been gentler with her because she has a valuable skill, which none of the others had. Can you guess what it is?’

As he spoke, he had begun to twist the fingers of his free hand into the girl’s hair, tighter and tighter, pushing off the hood of her cloak. Her face, gripped in his fingers, showed no expression. He looked fascinated then suddenly angry. He gave a savage wrench and held up a handful of her hair. He had torn it out. He frowned at it and then looked into the girl’s expressionless face with a mixture of frustration and admiration. Then he flung the hair aside with a sneer of disgust and came to look down at me.

‘You see? She feels nothing. There is nothing left of her. She is a vessel that holds my will. It is my will that prevents you using your power.’

I gaped at him. ‘She . . . 
she
is causing the block?!’

He laughed delightedly. ‘Clever Elspeth. I discovered what she was just in time. I would have thrown her overboard when I found that fool, Saul, trying to hide her. What use had I for a baby? He begged me for her life. Said she was special. That
he
thought so was very curious. He would have given his life for her. He did, in fact. Of course she was a baby so I had to wait. But there were many ways I could begin emptying her out, even then, were there not, little Lidge?’

‘Lidgebaby,’ I said.

It was the name of the Misfit baby whose mind I had first encountered in Henry Druid’s camp in the White Valley, and whose astonishing instinctive coercive ability had bound all nearby Misfit minds in a linked merge at birth, effectively blocking any use of Talent that was not linked to her within her considerable range. Lidge had vanished after Henry Druid had been betrayed by Ariel. I had thought she was a boy. Assumed it. I looked at her. She looked at nothing.

There was a knock at the door. It was behind me and I could not see who opened it. ‘All is prepared,’ said a male voice. Gadfian, I thought.

‘Good,’ said Ariel. He glanced at me. ‘Do not waste your black arts on these Ekoni. They are protected by their demon bands.’ He went to Lidge and took her hand, pulled on it lightly so she rose, then led her out after him. The two Gadfians bent over me, carefully keeping their eyes averted as they released the ropes holding my bound body to the bed and then untied my feet. I was so stiff that they had to half carry me down the steps outside the room. I had no idea what was to happen save that there would be pain in it. Then a heavy hessian bag was dragged over my head and tied too tightly about my neck. I struggled, but it was useless, and I realised I was using up the little air that was able to get through the thick, dusty weave. Gasping, sweating, I was half carried half dragged along, until I could tell by the light and the heat of the sun on my bare limbs that I was outdoors.

I walked for a time, tripping and stumbling until one of the men muttered a curse and threw me over his shoulder. It was even harder to breathe and I fought to stay calm. I could not coerce him, though I tried, nor could I reach beyond him, for the block that Lidge was exerting lay as heavily over my mind as ever. I strove to reach her, but there was no mind to reach.

I thought I could smell the sea, and then suddenly we were going down steps. I was passed from one person to another and then dragged along and forced to sit on the ground.

Then someone was fumbling at my throat and the bag was torn away. I gasped in fresh air and saw that I was in a small chamber that seemed to be crowded with people. Several were High Chafiri men with proud, rigid expressions, but there were also a number of Redlanders whose faces I did not recognise. The emissary was here with his women, clad in long tubelike gowns of grey silk, identical long swathes of black hair hanging from beneath enormous, heavy-looking veiled headdresses. They were masked as at the ball, but his face was again painted white. A number of lanterns were set on the ground about the edges of the chamber and the upslanting light they cast shadowed the walls strangely. The only furniture was a long high bench upon which Ariel sat, swinging his legs and watching me. Lidge stood to one side against the wall, her hood restored and pulled forward so that her face was hidden. Her feet were bare and looked cold and small. Defenceless. Yet I could feel the weight of the block given out by her mind, which prevented me using any of my powers.

All at once I noticed the form of a man on the wall behind her and realised that it was the frieze of Luthen, which meant we were in Luthen’s crypt. The stone sword I had been given by the overguardian of the Earthtemple had been slotted into place in the carving of Luthen, just as I had imagined it.

I looked at Ariel, to find he was still watching me, a curious eager smile curling his lips.

‘You have been here before, of course,’ he said in a light conversational tone. ‘The queen told me all about it and about the stone sword. Of course she did not tell it willingly. She is very stubborn. I could not get her to tell me where the sceptre is either. She insisted she did not know. Not that I need it, but I do not like to be refused what I want. She made me so cross I almost killed her. Then I realised she was trying to provoke me to do just that because the clever little minx had realised that her people would never rise while she was being held hostage.’ He gave a queer giggle. ‘I hurt her to punish her for her insolence and she screamed so nicely I have decided to bond with her. I brought you here because I thought you would like to see me become a king.’

‘Bastard,’ I said, through clenched teeth.

To my astonishment, he burst out laughing. At the same time, a queer light glowed from the walls. Then a masculine voice spoke. It was the voice of an older man, cold and calm and certain.

‘Keyed voice print acknowledged. The Darkest Door is open. Re-insert key to input command.’

‘What . . . what?’ I looked around, shocked. Then I saw that Ariel was smiling triumphantly. He pointed at me playfully, then I realised he was not pointing. He was dangling the hacker’s key I had brought with me from the Omega complex.

‘It was another null that saw the importance of this device for me, long ago. He was powerful and useful, but unfortunately he died,’ Ariel said carelessly.

‘It is useless to you,’ I said. ‘It was created solely to shut down the Balance of Terror computer.’

‘Was it?’ Ariel asked. ‘Because my dead null was very clear about the fact that it would be willing to do other things. If
you
will command it. Such as telling it to obey me.’

‘I won’t do that,’ I said. ‘Never.’

‘Never is a very stern sort of word,’ Ariel murmured. ‘An unpleasant word, with unpleasant consequences.’

‘Computer, shut down at once. Stop,’ I cried.

Ariel smiled. ‘I used up a good many nulls to understand how to use the key. For instance, I knew where the key was to be inserted, and that your voice and the cat’s would both be needed to open the dark door. It took some doing to capture the creature, for I did not want to kill it. My last null told me it would come looking for you and once I had it, I brought it here and it yowled beautifully when I smashed a paw. Then I only needed
your
voice. Which you have just now given me, thereby opening the Darkest Door. Unfortunately for you, it is not quite all that is needed for you to command the Balance of Terror computer. The key must be reinserted, but before I do that, I must be sure you will give the command I require. That is, the command to obey me. Then it will be
my
dark door to open and close as I like.’

‘You are insane,’ I said. ‘I will never do it. I will die first.’

I expected Ariel to react with rage and braced myself, but he only smiled and said, ‘Of course you will, because that is the sort of weak fool you are. I expected no less an offer than that. However, it is not quite that simple.’ He nodded to the Ekoni by the small door that opened halfway up a set of stone steps. He climbed out and Ariel hummed a little until he returned hauling someone after him, someone small, hooded as I had been, struggling. Another Ekoni followed with another prisoner. Someone tall but also slight, someone who staggered and would have fallen had not the Ekoni caught them. My heart sank as yet another hooded prisoner was forced through the opening. This one was bigger and struggled. It took two Ekoni to force him to his knees against the wall alongside the other two. Then another was brought in, also big, but stooped, not struggling. Eventually, there were six prisoners with their hands shackled behind their backs, their feet shackled together tightly enough that they had been unable to move at more than a shuffle. Each, by their silence, gagged under their hoods, all now kneeling against the wall opposite me.