Darkwitch Rising (34 page)

Something made him look down to St Mary-le-Bow halfway down Cheapside.

There!
He could see her, clinging to a horse, with the girl riding on a separate horse behind a man who must be John Thornton.

Louis took a deep breath, hope filling his soul, and stepped forward to run down Cheapside—
a few minutes and he would have her! Look, they were caught up in the snarl of traffic just beyond St Mary-le-Bow!
—when a mighty hand fell on his shoulder.

“You shall
not
have her,” growled a frightful voice, and Louis cried out in despair, and sank to his knees.

H
e felt ice slide through his body, and he blinked, and somehow regained his feet, stumbling in confusion, and saw that whoever—
whatever
—had grabbed him had mysteriously transported them away from the churchyard of St Paul’s.

Moreover, he noticed, it (or they) had also managed to bring to his side his leather bag, which Louis vaguely recalled leaving tucked away in a niche in the wall by Newgate.

He blinked once again. He knew that he should be endeavouring to escape whatever prison his captor had brought him to, but, bizarrely, Louis was only able to think for the moment of what a methodical and neat mind his captor had.

To bring his bag from Newgate…

“You must truly want me gone,” Louis muttered, and, with those words, his vision cleared.

He stood in a long hall, timber-ceilinged, stone-walled, flagstone-floored. At the eastern end of the hall glowed a stunningly beautiful stained glass window. Flags hung from the beams of the ceiling in neat rows down either side of the hall, and torches glowed in alcoves underneath the rows of windows along the two walls.

Louis turned around to the western end of the structure. He had the instant impression of a wooden balcony which filled that end of the hall, but his eyes
were instantly drawn to the two huge creatures standing before him.

They appeared to be carved of wood, yet they moved as if they were flesh. Their faces were almost obscured both by helmets and beards, chain mail (made of wooden links, but nonetheless apparently impregnable) protected their chests, and each grasped a weapon—one a spear, the other a sword.

“Who are you?” Louis ground out. “
What
are you?”

The creature to Louis’ right answered. “We are London’s protectors,” he said. “My name is Gog, and this is Magog. Once we were Sidlesaghes, but now are something other.”

“I care not for your otherness,” said Louis. “My God, what have you done? Noah is—”

“Noah is where she must be,” said the creature named Magog. “What right have you to stop her?”

“I love her, and I—”

“Love is as nothing in this Game,” said Gog.

“All I want is Noah.”

“What you want is neither here nor there,” said Magog. “You need—”

“She goes directly to Weyland!” Louis yelled. He tried to move, but as he did so Gog tipped his spear and tripped Louis so that he sprawled over the floor.

“You are very protective,” said Gog. “One day you can make good use of it.”

“Curse you! I—”

“And one day,” Gog continued, “she
shall
be rescued from Weyland Orr’s grip. But that day is not here. Be patient.”

“He will murder her!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Magog.

Louis was back on his feet, his face red, his eyes frightened and furious all in one, his fists balled at
his sides. “He will torture her, he
has
tortured her. Don’t you—”

“We revere her as much as you,” said Magog, “but we are also willing to allow her to follow the paths that she must. We trust. Not only in Eaving, but also in the land and the Troy Game.”

Louis started to speak, but the giant Gog put out a hand and rested it in a kindly fashion on Louis’ shoulder. “Look,” the giant said, and, with gentle pressure, turned Louis about so that he faced into the Guildhall.

John Thornton pulled the horse to a halt. They’d moved from Cheapside down through several ever-narrowing alleyways until they’d come to this tiny, darkened lane that doglegged past the church of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East.

As Thornton looked down the lane the gloom intensified until there seemed nothing but blackness before him. “Noah—”

“It is where Mama and I must go,” said Catling. “Jane is waiting for us.”

“Jane and who else?” said Thornton.

“Jane is all that matters,” said Noah. “John, please, if you do anything for me, then deliver me to that house. There, that one, just where the lane curves past St Dunstan’s.”

The house was typical of most other houses Thornton had seen in the city: cramped, crowded out by the buildings on either side of it, its upper floors jutting into the laneway, heavy-beamed, its stone walls broken here and there with tiny lead-paned windows.

As Thornton studied the house, its street door slowly swung inwards.

There was nothing inside, save further blackness.

“No!” cried Louis, stretching out his hands towards the vision.

“You cannot interfere,” said Gog, his voice deep with tenderness.

“I—” Louis could not continue.

“I know,” said Gog. “I know.”

“I will leave you here, John,” said Noah, “and walk the last distance with Catling. There is no need for you to come closer.”

“Noah, I can’t—”

“This is something I and my daughter must do, John. Alone.”

Noah slid down her horse’s flank, pulling her skirts into order as she reached the ground. She lifted down her small valise, then helped Catling to dismount.

Thornton jumped down to the cobbles. “Noah, will I ever see you again?”

Noah laughed, but Thornton could detect the thick edge of strain beneath it. “Why, of course, John Thornton. We shall meet again.” She leaned forward, and gave him her mouth to kiss.

“Be still, John. We shall be well enough.”

“I will never see you again,” he said, certain of that fact.

Noah only looked at him, her eyes steady, then she lifted a hand, laid it briefly against his cheek, took Catling’s hand and, without a backward glance, walked the last twenty or so feet towards the open door of the house.

Just before she entered, Noah paused and, letting go of Catling’s hand, reached into her valise. She pulled something out and slipped it over her left wrist.

Thornton couldn’t be sure from this distance what it was, but he thought it was a bracelet.

Then Noah turned and gave Thornton one last look as she took Catling’s hand again.

Because of the distance between them, Thornton could not be certain of the expression in her eyes, but he thought it was either resignation or a sadness so extreme it would have destroyed most people.

“Noah!” he called, and stepped forward, but as he called out a white hand reached from the darkness of the house, grasped Noah by the arm, and pulled her and Catling inside.

The door slammed shut, and Thornton winced.

“Noah,” he whispered.

“She is gone now,” said Magog. “Gone to somewhere you cannot yet reach. But be still, Louis de Silva. All will yet be well.”

“I could have saved her!”

“No,” said Magog. “You would only have doomed her.”

Louis looked at the giant, his gaze full of hatred and despair.

“There is more reason yet we brought you here,” said Magog.

“What?” said Louis, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Condemning Noah to slow destruction by Weyland’s hand was not enough in a day’s work for you?”

Gog reached out a massive hand and dealt Louis a hard rap across the face.

Louis staggered, barely managing to keep himself from falling to the floor.

“Your arrogance is overwhelming,” said Gog. “You would do well to lose some of it.”

“I would have done well by saving Noah,” Louis growled, one hand to his nose, from where trickled a little blood.

“If you had wrenched Noah away from her duty and her purpose,” said Gog, “then Weyland would have destroyed not only her, but you, and all with whom you are allied. What kind of fool are you, eh, to sally forth into London alone? Did you not think in your chivalrous rush that you might become the victim, as well as Noah?”

Louis said nothing, but merely stared at the giants with implacable eyes.

“There is something else you need to see,” said Magog, and once again a giant’s hand turned him around, towards the cavernous space of the hall.

The glade lay cool and sheltered in the dappled light. A pool of emerald water stretched across its centre, while shadowy sentinel trees stood watch about its rim.

Partway between the water and the trees lay a white stag with blood-red antlers. His heart lay cruelly torn from his breast, but, as Louis watched, he could see that the heart continued to beat strongly, and the stag’s flanks rose and fell with living breath.

There was a movement. The stag’s head stirred, and raised a little. He snorted, and then gave a soft cry, as if calling to someone.

A man stepped forth from the shadowy recesses beneath the trees.

A king, for there was a halo of golden light about his head, as if a crown.

A king tall and well muscled and with long black curling hair.

Charles.

He walked to the stag, now straining to rise, and extended a hand to its nose. Blinding light filled the glade and, when it cleared, there stood the stag, as glorious as he would have been in his prime. His
chest was healed, his stance was majestic, and he glowed with power and purpose.

Charles had vanished.

“See,” whispered Gog. “The Stag God has risen.”

Louis could see nothing but the sight of Charles walking into the clearing. “I always knew it would be him,” he said, his voice curiously flat. “Always. Whatever she said to me.”

“Nothing counts for you in this life but that the Stag God rises,” said Magog. “
Nothing counts but that!
Not the bands, not even Noah. Your purpose in this life must
only
be to ensure that the Stag God rises. Can you imagine, Louis, what an opponent the Stag God shall be, when he has not only his ancient powers of this land fully restored to him, but the powers of the bands as well? When he is not only Stag God of the ancient land, but Kingman of the Troy Game as well? Then he can challenge Weyland Orr, but not before.”

“Not before,” echoed Gog. “Never before that time.”

“Noah shall survive until that moment, Louis. You must understand that it shall be the Stag God, and no one else, who must wrench her from Weyland’s claws.
Do
you understand that, Louis?”

Louis said nothing, staring at the empty space where but a moment before he had seen Charles transform into the Stag God.

“
Do you understand that, Louis
?”

“Aye,” Louis ground out, as if he ceded away his life with each passing word. “I understand that.”

J
ane pulled myself and Catling into the house and then closed the door behind us. We stood in a dimly lit parlour, its dark floorboards, heavy wooden sideboard and chairs and shuttered window giving it an air of deep cheerlessness.

Granted, at that moment I did not need either floorboards or heavy furniture to impart any sense of cheerlessness. Yet, strangely, I also felt relieved. What I had dreaded for so long had finally arrived; I no longer had to anticipate it, I merely had to survive it.