The four other guards drew weapons, but stood by, uncertain.
‘Dismiss them,’ ordered Manannan, ‘or your life ends here.’
‘Get back,’ squealed Paulus. ‘Leave us!’ The guards helped their injured comrades from the room and pulled the door shut. Manannan dragged back Paulus’ head and pricked the skin of his neck, allowing a thin trickle of blood to seep down on to his white tunic.
‘You will now take us to my armour and my horse,’ hissed Manannan, ‘and then I might let you live.’ He flicked a glance at Morrigan. ‘Are you coming with me?’
‘Where else can I go?’
‘Then lead the way through the back of the apartments. The guards are probably there by now, but we’ll walk through them.’
Dragging the whimpering Paulus, they entered the gardens; the smell from the blooms was almost sickening. The black-cloaked guards had gathered, but they stayed back as Manannan followed Paulus’ directions to the stables beyond a high white wall. Kuan was there, standing statue-still. Manannan ran his hand over the stallion’s back, but the animal did not move.
‘What have you done to him?’ stormed the Once-Knight.
‘We made him better than ever he was,’ said Paulus, ‘as we were doing with you. Why can you not understand, Manannan? We have given you freely the gift of immortality!’
The Once-Knight flung the old man against a wall. ‘Immortality? You almost made me one of you - a drinker of souls.’
‘Do not be so romantic,’ snapped Paulus. ‘Do you not slaughter animals for meat? Where then is the difference? Or will you tell me that a bull has no soul? It is a living being made up of flesh and blood and bone - and that is all a man is. We perfected the elixir of life. What right have you to judge us?’
‘I will not debate with you, Vampyre. There is no point. Now, where is the armour?’
Paulus led him to a wide room at the rear of the stable. Here, on wooden trees, were nine suits of silver armour. Manannan’s anger soared and he swallowed hard.
‘This is all that remains of the true Knights who came here! The proud men who wore these are dead -just as you are dead, Paulus. You may walk under the sun, but you are dead: a ruined, corrupted thing.’ He turned to Morrigan. ‘Saddle Kuan.’
‘The guards are gathering outside,’ she told him.
‘Ignore them. Saddle my horse.’
‘They will not let us leave.’
‘Then I shall cut a path through them. Now, saddle Kuan.’
‘It is not too late for you, Manannan,’ whispered Paulus. ‘I spoke harshly before, but you could still join us. Wait and speak to Samildanach - he is your friend.’
‘He is dead, Paulus. I do not speak with the dead.’ Morrigan led the cold stallion into the room and Manannan moved to stand before his horse, pulling Paulus with him. He handed his knife to Morrigan. ‘If he struggles or moves an inch, kill him. Can you do that?’
‘It would be a pleasure,’ she said, holding the blade against Paulus’ throat.
He smiled thinly. ‘And how long, my dear, can you survive in the world of blood without your Ambria? You will need nourishment — and they will hate you for it. They will destroy you.’
Morrigan said nothing, but the Once-Knight saw the truth bring fear, to her eyes. He could find no words of comfort and moved to his armour.
‘Look out!’ shouted Morrigan and Manannan swivelled just as a lance hurtled towards his back. He threw up an arm to strike the missile aside, but the guard who had thrown it stepped from behind a stall and ran at him with sword raised. The Once-Knight reached out and drew his own shining silver blade from its scabbard on the tree.
‘You cannot stand against me,’ he told the guard. ‘Be sensible - and live.’
The guard shouted an obscenity and rushed in, whereupon Manannan countered the clumsy blow and slashed a reverse sweep across the man’s throat. The guard’s head toppled from his shoulders, body slumping to the hay-strewn floor. Swiftly Manannan donned his armour, buckling the breastplate and sliding the shoulder-guards into place. His stomach heaved and his body shook; sweat trickled from his face into his eyes.
‘Be strong, Manannan,’ Morrigan pleaded. He forced a grin and walked to Paulus.
‘Now, Vampyre, you have one last opportunity to cling to your half-life. Open the Gate between the Worlds.’
‘I cannot, not here. The beasts will enter. There must be space for the tunnel.’
‘Then you die here,’ said Manannan softly, pressing the sword to Paulus’ belly.
‘Wait!’ begged the old man. ‘I could reach Ollathair! He could open the Gate.’
‘Then do it!’
Paulus nodded and closed his eyes. A golden circle of light began to grow against the far wall and Manannan saw a cave packed with people and Ollathair talking to a tall man with a red-gold beard. He watched as the sorcerer stiffened and turned. Ollathair’s voice whispered inside Manannan’s mind.
‘Do not taunt me, Manannan. Begone! Join your brothers!’
‘I need help, Ollathair,’ said the Once-Knight, aloud. ‘Morrigan is with me. You must open the Gate.’
‘If this is some form of demonic trickery, you will answer for it.’
Manannan shook his head. ‘Just open the Gate, Armourer. I’ll give you answers.’
‘Consider it done,’ said Ollathair and the vision faded.
Manannan rested his sword on Paulus’ shoulder. ‘Morrigan, I think it best that you also don a suit of armour. Use the one furthest left; it once belonged to Pateus, and he was slim enough.’
He watched as she slid from her dress, then turned his attention to Paulus. ‘I ought to kill you,’ he whispered. ‘By the Source, you deserve it! But I will not.’
‘Do not take a high moral tone with me, Manannan, merely because my ways are different from yours. In your petty world, thousands die in wars and plagues and bloodshed. Their corpses serve no purpose. Here the deaths are relatively few, for we have no battles and no diseases. My people are a cultured race.’
‘You live on death, Paulus - on other people’s misery. Do you drag them screaming for mercy to their deaths? And do they feel fear as you did a few moments ago? Do they beg for their lives as you were prepared to do?’
‘I would imagine they do,’ Paulus admitted, ‘though the Ambria vats are in the north of the city and I have not found it necessary to visit them. But in your world, do not the kings and princes have men put to death? Do they not own slaves whose lives depend upon the whim of their owners?’
‘There is nothing either of us can say to reach the other,’ said Manannan. ‘You and your race are evil -but then that is just a word to you. You will be destroyed ... in time.’ Glancing back at Morrigan, who was fastening silver greaves to her calves, he waited until she buckled the sword to her hip and then patted Kuan’s neck. ‘Come, Greatheart, we are going home.’
‘He does not hear you,’ said Paulus. ‘The stallion is dead. But you will find him faster than ever he was; he will not let you down.’
‘He would not have let me down in life - and that would have been his choice,’ Manannan told him. ‘Go, Paulus. You are free.’
The old man turned to find himself facing Morrigan, a sword in her hands.
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Paulus. ‘He said I was free.’
‘Perhaps he did,’ hissed Morrigan, ‘but I am of the Vyre, Paulus, and I am evil. I am what you made me.’
‘Don’t! Please. I beg you, Morrigan. I will bring you Ambria ... I will . . .’
Her sword hammered into his side, ripping his entrails from his body, and he fell screaming to the floor.
Morrigan ran to Manannan and vaulted into the saddle behind him. ‘Ride!’ she shouted.
The dead stallion bunched its muscles and galloped from the stable. Guards hurled themselves aside as the horse thundered by. Arrows bounced from Manannan’s armour - and then they were clear and out into the countryside.
Ahead of them lay the trees and the dark shadow-haunted entrance to the Tunnel of the Gate.
‘Why did you kill him?’ shouted Manannan.
‘Why did you not?’ she countered.
Kuan ran on, his pace constant. Arrows jutted from his dead flesh and Manannan felt a great sense of loss and a heavy sadness. They entered the tunnel at a full gallop and all light vanished, but when Manannan held up his sword and shouted ‘Ollathair!’, the blade blazed with a white light which reflected from scores of eyes to the left and right.
‘The beasts are coming,’ screamed Morrigan and Manannan glanced back to see a pack of huge, lumbering wolf creatures running along the trail behind them. He turned his gaze to the front - the tunnel was ending.
And still the Gate was shut.
‘Was that the enemy?’ asked Llaw, as the glowing golden window faded.
‘I hope not,’ answered Ruad. ‘That was Manannan. I sent him through the Black Gate in search of the Gabala Knights and I must bring him back.’
‘But you said that the evil beyond the Gate overcame them. How do you know it has not affected Manannan? This could be a trick.’
‘If it proves so, he - they - will rue it. I am not without power. I will return here by morning.’ As Ruad moved towards the doorway, Llaw called out to him.
‘Shall I send men with you?’
‘No. If it is a trap, they will not be able to aid me, and if it isn’t I will not need them.’
The sorcerer walked out into the snow, glad to be free of the cave and the hope in the eyes of Llaw Gyffes. How could the man understand the ways of magic? He was a blacksmith and a man of little learning. As far as he was concerned, the enemy were just men. The fact that they possessed enormous power from the Red did not concern him. After all, the great Ollathair was now with the rebels.
‘Find me a way to kill them.’
Did .he think it was so easy? Samildanach alone had almost been a match for Ruad Ro-fhessa - and that was before they passed through the Gate. Who knew of what terrible deeds he was now capable? Ruad trudged on, reaching a low hill above the cave. The wind howled around him and he walked on into a circle of trees. Selecting a shaded spot, he gathered wood, building a rough pyramid. He needed no tinder. Reaching into the Red, he ran his hand over a branch; flames sprang from within the wood and he thrust it into the pyramid.
For a little while he sat lost in thoughts of all that could have been. Then he straightened his back and reached for the calm of the White.
Soon he would open the Gate, but first he had to think, to plan. If Manannan had been changed, corrupted, then Ruad would kill him. Morrigan, too. If not, he would seek the Once-Knight’s counsel and plan - as Llaw urged him - a defence against Samildan-ach’s evil.
Evil? He rolled the word around in his mind. What did it mean? Samildanach had been a Knight, pledged to fight injustice. He had always hated evil. Yet now he was the man Ruad feared above all others. And how did Samildanach view him? As evil? Was it all relative? A mere matter of perception? The Gabala Knights had patrolled the Nine Duchies dispensing justice - but they were backed by their skills with lance and blade, which meant that their power was inspired by fear. And fear was a cousin to evil.
Ruad shook his head. This was not the time for such a debate.
He pictured again Manannan’s face and the shadowy background he had glimpsed through the window. There was something there, he recalled, that had caught his eye. He concentrated on the memory, trying to bring the image into sharp focus. Something had gleamed in the background. A mirror behind Manannan? No, not a mirror. A warrior in armour? No, not quite. It was inert . . . lifeless . . . and yet, curiously familiar.
Think, man!
He lifted himself once more into the White, cleansing his mind, freeing himself from fear and doubt. All that mattered was the gleaming object. All else faded.
And then it was there: the ornate shoulder-plate he had made for Edrin. It was resting on a wooden armour-tree, and with it was Edrin’s silver armour.
Ruad opened his eye - his mouth dry and his heart beginning to hammer. He tried again to find calm, but it was impossible. The original armour of the Gabala Knights was within his grasp, for if Edrin’s armour was there, why not the others?
He thought of Manannan. The Gate would need to be opened soon, but thefe was still time. He needed power and floated towards the Black, filling his body with strength, feeling his muscles swell. Then he sought the Red. Fear touched him as the Colour washed over him - such a powerful spell would radiate far. He must be swift, or Samildanach would locate him and travel the Mist to kill him. He pictured the arms he had made for the Gabala Knights - the ornate helms, habergeons, greaves and gauntlets, and the swords of silver steel that would never dull. He drew the memories to him and reached out. His mind swam. Waves of pain blanketed him.
He had tried this before - six years ago - and been repulsed by a wall of sorcery. But now the wall had disappeared. Sensing the closeness of his creations, he opened the eyes of his mind and saw Manannan and Morrigan racing towards the Gate. The woman was wearing Pateus’ armour.
Swiftly he reached out again. There! In a wide room, seven suits of armour and seven swords. He returned to his body, holding the place in his mind, and said aloud the Words of Calling. The air crackled and his head ached; he groaned and felt the wetness of blood flowing from his nose.
Too late now to halt the process. ‘Come to me!’ he shouted. ‘Come to Ollathair!’ A flash of light leapt from the ground before him, scattering his fire. He brushed the cinders from his lap and fought his way through the burning pain in his chest. His left arm was growing numb, and he could feel panic welling in him. If his heart gave out now, it would all be for nothing.
Calm! Be calm, he told himself. ‘Come to me!’ he whispered.
Glowing lights formed a circle around Ruad, shimmering in the moonlight, translucent and almost transparent. He watched as they formed, growing more solid. Slumping back to the ground, he sucked in a deep breath. Around him, like ghostly Knights, stood the armour of the Gabala - and with this, allied to Ruad’s own enormous powers, Llaw Gyffes might have a chance. He eased himself to his feet.
He must open the Gate for Manannan. He gathered his fading strength, took one last look at the eight silent statues and then began the Spell of Opening. Pain tore at his chest and the fingers of his left hand grew numb.