The Wind of Southmore (15 page)

Arlen was
doubled over, the pain in her head intensifying, the chant creeping
around her brain like soft gloves. The bony hand rose, the wide
sleeve falling back to reveal a long white arm, reaching for the
hood. It was calling for her now. It had come to her when she had
called, and now it wanted payment. She fought against it, the words
searing her brain, renting wall after wall of her mind. Shooting
pains assaulted the backs of her eyes, struck by the firelight, and
the wall that seemed to separate her from the moving figures
shattered until the chanting became deafening and her head swam.
She leaned forward and retched.

“
Arlen, Arlen, fight it,” Alice was holding her tightly,
shaking her, terrified. “Arlen, come back.”

“
Must – not – let in,” she whispered, “must – get –
out.”

The cave
appeared in her mind like a prayer, its cool green shelter winking
at her from somewhere. If she could only reach the cave and rest in
the damp coolness of its rainbow lights, she’d be able to think.
She’d be able to breathe again.

Alice
stared at her, her heart pounding frantically. The liquid green
fronds of shadow seemed to pass through her inner vision like an
oasis, and she realised suddenly that she was reading Arlen’s
thoughts. So this is what it’s like, she thought distractedly,
suddenly remembering all the stories she had heard about twins and
telepathy. Maybe, then, she could work out what to do from this
glimpse into Arlen’s knowledge.

It was
then that it struck her. It was so simple.

The
cave.

Another
picture appeared in her head, flowing like a television screen from
Arlen’s mind. “The alchemist,” she murmured softly. “What about
him?” Her fists were smarting from the pounding on the walls,
searching for some, any, means of escape. “Arlen, what about
him?”

“
There was a – passageway – a secret – passageway – from the
alchemist’s room. I – read – about it once – ” Arlen faltered, her
head buried in her hands, and suddenly Arlen could see her, the
other twin. She was standing almost right before her in a dark
cloak, disappearing into the fireplace, a tightly wrapped parcel
under her arm and an overwhelming ache, a deep and desperate
sadness swamping her like a wave. How alike we are, Alice thought,
and started suddenly as the long-ago figure seemed to turn back
slightly, as if searching for someone. Could it be that she saw her
too? She half rose as the image vanished suddenly into the wall,
like a conjurer’s trick.

“
Where is she going?” Alice cried. “The alchemist’s passage
isn’t here anymore! We’d have to go rummage about in the rubble!”
And she ran to the fireplace, running her fingers over the ancient
stone, searching desperately for an escape.

“
Maybe – there was another one,” Arlen stammered, still with
difficulty. The cries below the tower were so intense now that she
could almost see them in the room with her – the hooded shapes, no
longer wraithlike, but physical and powerful, bare feet slapping
the cold sand, and from one wide, dark sleeve, a skeletal,
elongated hand, and the fire of a ruby ring. “We have to find it,”
she whispered. “We have to find it before he does.”

“
But where’s the door?” Alice cried, shoving frantically at the
rock. The panic inside her had risen to such a point that she was
near bursting into tears. “I’ve looked everywhere – I’ve been over
the whole room. It won’t open!”

“
The fireplace,” Arlen said simply.

“
Where
?” Alice almost shouted. “I’ve
tapped and prodded everything. There’s nothing
there
!” and she pounded mercilessly
against the ancient stone so that her hands were scraped and
bloody. Arlen rose slowly to stand beside her and something in
Alice snapped. How could she stand there so calmly and quietly, as
if she knew something she wouldn’t share, and she turned her
attention to her sister suddenly, and shook her and shook her until
she felt that her own body would shatter into fragments itself and
be sucked through the chimney like smoke. As Arlen struggled, the
ribbon around her neck ripped and the charm swung and fell,
clinging as if magnetised to a tiny chink in the stone, and
suddenly she knew. “Turn it,” she instructed Alice.

“
What?”

“
Turn
it. It’s a key.”

Hardly
believing it, Alice reached for the charm, the smooth gold curls
sending a soft glow through her, and turned it gently. She stepped
out of the way just in time as the fireplace drew back, as if on
some sort of pulley, revealing a small dark opening and a very
narrow, dusty flight of steps.

Alice
looked at Arlen and Arlen looked at Alice.

“
Come on
.”

The
entrance was low and narrow, and both girls had to bend over to
slip through. Arlen could almost swear she saw a soft fold of cloak
disappear down the stairway before them.

“
Are you sure about this?” Alice asked nervously, as she
hesitated above the first step. She was holding the charm in front
of her, a soft golden glow emanating from its warm coils, like a
tiny lamp. The stairs were thin and winding, and seemed polished
smooth with use, so that some didn’t appear to be really there at
all. Alice couldn’t help but liken them to a sliding tunnel she had
once seen at an amusement park on a school excursion. At least
there though, she’d known where she was going to end up.

“
Just keep going,” Arlen said slowly. The chant was still
sounding in her ears, ringing with her heartbeat, and the shadows
of the dancers crossed her eyes in black cords. She could smell
them now, too; a pungent, rising odour, a stagnation of nothing and
lifelessness, filling her nose and her mind until she could feel
the bile rise in her throat. “Quickly,” she urged Alice. “Keep
going.”

“
OK.” Alice took a deep breath and led the way
forward.

It was a
slow procession. The worn steps were difficult to tread without
slipping, and they had to maintain a funereal walk for their own
safety. Down and down they went, each few steps almost completing a
full circle, so that they felt as though they weren’t moving at
all, down and down, in the chill silence of the darkness. It was
then that Alice stopped short.

“
What’s wrong?” Arlen asked, rubbing her nose, which had landed
at full tilt in Alice’s back.

“
The entrance,” Alice said quickly. “Did we shut
it?”

“
No – I don’t think so,” Arlen muttered.

“
Aunt Maud!” Alice could not forget the sharp, hungry look on
the old woman’s face as she had locked them in, above the ritual.
“She’ll find it. We have to shut it.”

“
I – can’t – ” Arlen tried to back up.

“
I’ll do it.” Alice held her sister firmly and slid around her
with some difficulty. The path left so little room that a slightly
larger person could not have done it. “Keep going.”

Frantically, she slipped back up the stairs as fast as she
dared, her fingers reaching desperately for holds in the soft,
crumbling stone as her trainers failed to grip the steps. It was
slow progress, but she eventually reached a glimmer of daylight,
appearing back at the entrance just as she heard the sound of heavy
footsteps outside the door.

“
Aunt Maud,” she muttered, her heart pounding as she sought
desperately for a way to close the chasm. There seemed to be
nothing. Her fingers explored stone and wood urgently for some sort
of lever or hole, but nothing was there. “Oh no, oh no.” The
footsteps had reached the door now. They stopped, and there was a
dreadful heavy pause which seemed to hang on the air like a hungry,
drawn-in breath. Her whole body was shaking now, her spine crawling
with gooseflesh as she waited expectantly, fearfully. The silence
grew, and then she heard the tiniest clink of metal entering the
lock. Snapped to suddenly, she continued her search, hardly daring
to breathe. The original key hole was now buried beneath the
hanging fireplace, so that obviously wasn’t the closing method.
There must be a way, she thought frantically, there
must
be. It’s a secret
passage – it couldn’t have stayed secret if it had been left open.
Oh, come
on
. The
key was in the door now. She heard it turn and click and watched
the handle turn slowly, as if the person behind the door was hoping
that those within wouldn’t notice it. The heavy oak began to move,
and Alice was aware of a strange sort of panting behind it. Her
whole body seemed to chill in the icy wave of a split second and
she started, as if an electric shock had coursed through her, and
it was then that she noticed the serpent. Just inside the entrance,
just above the sliding doorway, was the tiny figure of a dragon,
the golden winged creature that had come to her rescue once before.
She reached up, somehow feeling that if she could only touch it, it
would afford her some protection, at least. Her fingers slid across
a warm, rubbery sort of material, tracing its pattern softly, as
the door opened wide and Aunt Maud stood behind it, eyes
glittering, key triumphant in her hand, her greedy expression
changing quickly into surprise, anger and fear as she saw Alice’s
small, scared face glowing white in the darkness of the cavity, and
she rushed forward in a hungry leap that Alice wouldn’t have
thought her capable of, her mouth open and snarling. Alice drew
back, her heart seeming to stop entirely for a moment, but the
figure of the serpent shone strong and golden, leaving her flooded
in light, and the fireplace drew back on its invisible castors at
the very moment Aunt Maud flung herself at it with a desperate
cry.

Alice was left shaking in a pool of gold, the figure of the
dragon glowing around her like stars. She didn’t know what had
happened to Aunt Maud. That expression – that
wail
– hadn’t even seemed human. She
curled herself up in a ball within the protective light of the
worm, and trembled. It seemed like hours, although it was only a
few minutes, until her thoughts began to collect and merge, and she
remembered Arlen, alone in the dark, alone with the chanting. She
took a deep breath, gathered herself together, and turned back
towards the steps.

Arlen, meanwhile, had come to a standstill. She had reached
the bottom of the steps by forcing herself to concentrate on each
one individually. It helped her to focus away from the throb of
chanting, which was growing louder and more intense with each step,
until her head was ringing with the words and they were pounding
with her heart. Those eyes. She could see the eyes in her head as
if they were still before her, that cold, grey face, that emptiness
behind the hood, and the sparkle of the ring as Robbie hurtled over
the cliff. That blood red ring. She tingled. She was in a
passageway now, sandy and flat, and moving away from the castle.
The silent chill of the winding staircase had thickened into a warm
stickiness, and there was a damp, mouldy, seaweedy smell in the
air. As she moved slowly into the tunnel, she could feel the ritual
intensify. The passage grew hot and gasping with the dancers, and
the craggy walls around her, which were carved with swirling,
magical symbols, sweated red with blood. She removed her jumper and
stopped, panting. The walls and ceiling were vibrating, and the
fire of the circle was flashing before her eyes in a throbbing
drum, and it was only when a trickle of sand fell upon her in a
shower that she realised she was underneath the dancing ground. She
felt paralysed, and yet still her heart kept dancing, throbbing,
pounding to the beat, and the shadows of the dancers once again
seemed to surround her and cage her in, trapping her like an
animal, black tentacles blocking and winding around her throat
until she felt that she was choking. The heat was becoming
unbearable now and she was wet with sweat, her body dripping, her
hair clinging to her face in thick dark strands, barring her eyes,
and still the dance went on and on, and the chant sank through her
like a stone. She felt powerless to move, unable to escape the
prison. And the fire glowed before her, tempting and terrifying,
until it seemed that she was caught within its heat and blood, and
everything around her flickered red and orange, and she thought
that she would burn up. Outside the fire she could see the shapes
moving, faceless shadows peering in at her with a strange,
snuffling sound, wet lips and tongues, like dogs on a scent, as if
they could
smell
her. And still she stood, motionless, while the sweat formed a
small puddle at her feet and her legs shook and the dance pounded
and pounded through her heart until she felt a sharp electric shock
and all was black.

She
waited, still, thinking nothing. She could not focus on anything –
he would know. He would find her. He would find them. Yet images
swam before her eyes like planets in the sky, and Alice’s scared,
white face came into view. Her fears had calmed considerably since
her escape from Aunt Maud, but the strange figure of her twin,
standing as if frozen, looking at something that she couldn’t see,
was enough to unnerve her again.

“
Arlen?” she whispered frantically. “Arlen, are you
alright?”

“
We have to move on,” Arlen said, and her voice was hoarse and
cracked. “They know we’re here.”

Without a
word Alice felt for her sister’s hand, and the pair followed the
path before them. Arlen was slow, still so slow, that Alice quite
despaired of them ever finding the way out. She could almost feel
the presence surrounding her twin, an invisible forcefield that
pricked her hand with tingling hot pins and needles even as she
touched her. Above them the shadow feet stamped and the ceiling
crumbled; their eyes were stinging with the grit of sand and small
pebbles, and the chant grew louder and louder and the heat more
intense as the roof began to split and crack, and the crumble
became a thunderstorm as the ceiling caved in behind
them.