The Eighth Court (20 page)

Conscious that using the shifting light shed by gallowfyre to light my way might be interpreted as a hostile approach, I used my torch, and I made my way down by its beam to the tunnels at the base of the stairs. It struck me then that I’d not noticed before that the rounded arch with its flat floor made the shape of a horseshoe. Was there significance in that or was I starting to see patterns everywhere I looked? I listened intently, aware that I was the visitor here.

“Gramawl?” My voice echoed back from the tunnel. “Gramawl, it’s Niall. I need to talk to Kareesh. Can I see her?” There was no sound in the tunnel except the faded echoes of my voice. “Gramawl?”

Edging into the tunnel, I expected at any moment to see a looming figure emerge from the shadows. My hand drifted unconsciously to the hilt of my sword and I had to will myself to withdraw it. I wasn’t here for a fight, and didn’t want to give that impression. I entered the tunnel one slow step at a time, using the torch to push back the darkness until the turn in the tunnel revealed the side passage with the stairs heading upwards. The entrance to Kareesh’s domain was normally hidden, but perhaps I was welcome here after all.

As soon as I reached the opening I knew something was wrong. When I was here before, the steps had been illuminated by the softest light from above, mixed with the aroma of spices and scented candles. Now the stairs upwards were lit only by the beam of my torch. I took the stairs slowly, my hand now firmly on the hilt of my sword. There was something wrong, I could taste it.

I reached the place where the stairs turned back on themselves and rose to Kareesh’s lair, but there was no light from above. Instead the questing beam of my torch illuminated only the dangling hangings strung from the ceilings in the room above. This room had been like a grotto, with Kareesh at its focus. As I topped the stairs I already knew it was empty. I pushed through the limp hangings, tapping my head against a copper lantern as I ducked through, the darkened lamp gonged dull and soft within the confines of that space. It was immediately apparent to me that it smelled different. Where before there had been musk over new-turned earth, now it smelled stale, lifeless and old. Under the beam of my torch, the hangings were threadbare, and the lanterns mottled with corrosion. I found the nest of cushions where Kareesh had held court. They were scattered listlessly, with no sign of occupation. Kareesh had gone.

I scanned the pile of cushions, looking for evidence of dust. Had she died, finally? Was there sign of her passing? The Feyre live a long time, but when they finally reach death, they are consumed by the power that they hold at bay with their life force, and Kareesh’s power had been formidable. If there was a trace of her, I didn’t find it. In amongst the cushions I found a bag of boiled sweets – Kareesh’s favourite. It was hard to think of her leaving them there.

What hit me then was that I would have to tell Blackbird. I couldn’t leave her to find out from someone else. Kareesh and Gramawl had taken her in when she was helpless and alone. Blackbird had told me once that Kareesh had initiated her in the ways of power, teaching her how to wield the magic she’d inherited. She had grown up with Gramawl and Kareesh when no one else would shelter her. It was going to be hard to explain what I’d found.

I turned away from the nest of cushions and went back to the stairway, descending the steps to the tunnel in torchlight and remembering how Kareesh had granted me the sight of a future where my daughter and I could survive. It had been her gift to me, and following that path had kept both Alex and me alive long enough to begin to learn the ways of the Feyre, and try to find a place in their society. I wondered whether her intention all along had been to ensure that Blackbird was not left entirely alone after she’d gone.

I reached the bottom of the steps and turned to retrace my steps. As I did, the light of my torch flickered, as if the batteries were giving out. I tapped it, trying to improve the contact.

As my tapping faded into the dark, something enormous cannoned into me, sweeping me off my feet and ramming me into the arc of the ceiling. I dangled there, held by a huge paw, pressed against the tiles, winded and coughing, the wrench having pulled the newly healed skin at my side. A sound rumbled through me, echoing off the tiles and making my guts reverberate.

“Gramawl,” I coughed, “it’s me, Niall. Remember me? Rabbit?” Looking down from where I was pressed against the roof, I could see the light from where the torch had fallen, outlining the huge shadow in the dark and revealing only two huge golden eyes staring malevolently up at me. “Gramawl, you’re crushing me…” He was pressing me so hard against the roof, I couldn’t breathe. I coughed weakly, trying to summon the thought of power. I needed to do something. My hand flailed out, trying to work out where my sword was. As it did, Gramawl vanished from under me and I fell flat onto the floor like a sack of wet sand.

“Oof!” I sprawled on the floor, winded and aware that I should be rolling to me feet ready for the next attack, but my body was still weak and I had no fight left in me. My bones felt like jelly, and my face was numb on one side from the impact. I raised myself up onto my elbows, trying to focus. The torch was a few feet away, pointing down the tunnel, illuminating the exit, if only I could get to my feet and make a run for it.

Ha! The way I felt at that moment, I might as well have wished to fly.

I pulled myself forward on my forearms, edging towards where the torch lay. My sword was in the light, just beyond it. As the torch came almost into reach, I felt my ankle snag and I began sliding backwards away from the torch. As I did, a pair of boots walked into my limited view and stopped.

She stood in the torchlight where she could be seen and spoke. “OK, Gramawl, how do you want to do this?”

“Amber,” I said. “Kareesh has gone. Don’t hurt him.”

“Don’t hurt him? Have you seen yourself?”

“We don’t need any more violence. It won’t help anyone – least of all Kareesh.”

“No, wait,” she grinned. “Your plan was to lull him into a false sense of security and then… what? Tickle him to death?”

“Gramawl?” I gasped. “I need to talk to you. This isn’t helping. It won’t bring her back.”

The air filled with shivering subsonics which bypassed my ears and made my teeth ache. I took a breath. If he was going to kill me he could have done it already. There was clearly something wrong, and I had to find out what. “Gramawl, I need to know what happened.”

My leg was released and I collapsed back onto the cold floor. Rolling over, I could see a pair of pale golden orbs watching me from beyond the light.

“Amber?”

“I’m here,” she said from behind me.

“Would you wait for me upstairs?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I need Gramawl to understand that I haven’t come to hurt anyone. I came to see Kareesh, but she’s not here. I want to know what happened, but he’s not going to tell me while you’re standing there with a sword.”

“And what do I tell Blackbird if he tears your arms and legs off?” she asked.

I watched the eye watching me. “He’s not going to hurt me,” I said, “but if by some chance he does, you can tell her that she should ask Gramawl for an explanation. He can explain it to her himself.”

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked.

“No, but I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ll join you upstairs in a few minutes.”

The torch skittered across the tiles to where I was kneeling. My hands closed around it and pulled it near, setting it on end on the floor so it shone up the tiled wall, illuminating without dazzling. The golden orbs flicked to the light and back to me. “Can we talk?” I asked.

The sound reverberating through the tunnels faded to a low hum.

“Is Kareesh…?” I let the question hang. The figure in the dark blinked and then edged further into the torch-lit area where I could see him more clearly. I was struck again by the silence of his movement. I could not guess his mood from his face, but from his posture I would say miserable, angry; frustrated. He shook his head slowly, an obvious no.

“She’s not dead?” I asked. He shook his head again.

“That’s good news isn’t it? Where is she then?” He shrugged his massive shoulders, opening his gnarled hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“You don’t know? She can’t have gone far. Where could she…?” His paw slammed into the floor, making the entire passage reverberate with the impact. “OK, OK. I’m sorry. I was only trying to help. I guess you’ve already looked for her and didn’t find her.”

He nodded slowly. I watched his face, noting how his nose twitched. “You’re very good at finding people, aren’t you?” I said, hazarding a guess. He nodded again. “But you didn’t find her, so…” I suddenly understood the problem, “she didn’t want to be found. She’s hidden herself from you. But why?”

Gramawl let out a long, mournful sound. It echoed down the passages, and faded slowly from the tunnels. It was the sound of loss and heartache.

“She must have used magic to hide herself,” I said, speaking out loud, “but she’s not left these tunnels in years, Blackbird told me that. When did she last go outside?” I asked him.

Gramawl shook his head and his fingers flickered in complex sign language.

“I’m sorry Gramawl, I never learned to sign. Blackbird knows, but she never taught me.”

He clenched his fists in frustration and tried again. Pointing to the stairs, he made a sign like someone walking with his fingers.

“Kareesh is leaving? Has left?” I suggested.

He nodded, then made a sign holding his hands together under his cheek and tilting his head, closing his eyes to indicate sleep.

“She’s sleeping somewhere?” I guessed.

He waved his hand to indicate not, but then mimed waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping…

“A day?” I suggested.

He nodded enthusiastically, then motioned that he meant bigger.

“A week?” I asked. He did it again. “A month? A year?” With this last he clapped his hand together. “A year.” I said.

He held up his paw, counting along his fingers. He counted five, then closed his hand and raised one finger on the other hand. “Six years?” I asked. Then he did it again, only this time he raised two fingers.

He was counting, but in base six instead of base ten. As soon as he realised I’d got it he held up all his fingers.

“That’s…” I struggled with the calculation, “Thirty-five years?”

He nodded, and then flashed his open hands at me, time after time.

“That’s… no wait, that’s too many. That’s hundreds.”

He clapped his hands together.

“Hundreds of years. She hasn’t been outside on her own for hundreds of years? That’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

He nodded slowly.

“Then why leave now?” I asked.

Again, the anguished moan filled the tunnels.

“You don’t know, do you?” I asked him. “She didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head, the moan trailing off mournfully.

“She waited until you weren’t here, and then left. She must have been planning this for some time. Where would she go without you? Is there somewhere only she could go? Somewhere she couldn’t take you?”

Gramawl’s massive shoulders sagged, as if under a great weight.

“Or she’s gone to do something that she has to do alone?”

Again the mournful wail, haunted the tunnels. I looked at Gramawl and understood him at last. He thought she’d taken herself somewhere else to die. It was a journey on which he could not accompany her, and it was the only thing he could not protect her from. She’d waited for him to go outside and then left him behind because she didn’t want him following her. I already knew Gramawl was much younger than she was. It was obvious in the way he moved and in the lustre of his fur, the pale whiteness of his tusk-like teeth. She must have known that she would not survive him, as must he. I reached out my hand to him, offering comfort.

Sensing that I had finally understood him, he took my hand and squeezed it gently in his. I had expected it to be rough and course, but it was warm and soft, like old leather. “I’m sorry Gramawl.” I said. “What will you do now?”

He shook his head and sat back, his eyes glowing in the dark. He folded his hands into his lap and settled himself.

“You’ll wait?” I asked. “What if she doesn’t return?” He shrugged.

“How long will you wait?” I asked. Again, the shrug.

I stood up, testing where I was bruised. I was sore, and the wound in my side ached, but I was whole. “Do you want me to tell Blackbird?” I asked.

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Then I’ll tell her.” I said. “She will want to see you.”

He simply raised his hand and pressed the tip of his finger to the floor. He would be here.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, picking up my sword and collecting the torch.

I backed away and then walked to the bend in the tunnel and looked back into the dark. There were the faint glimmers from two golden eyes in the dark. There was a question I hadn’t asked – one that I’d intended for Kareesh, but maybe Gramawl could help me with it.

“Gramawl? I was here before wasn’t I?” My voice echoed strangely in the darkened corridor, illuminated only by the ring of torchlight around my feet. The eyes blinked at me from the dark. “Before all of this, before Blackbird introduced me to you and Kareesh, before I even knew the Feyre existed, I was here, with you and Kareesh, wasn’t I?”

The eyes blinked again, but this time they did not re-open. I went back, shining the torch down the corridor. He had vanished silently into the dark. There were only the cold tiles and the empty stairway leading upwards.

Amber was waiting in the dark at the head of the stairway. We went through the door into the access tunnels below Covent Garden station and she looked me up and down.

“I’m OK,” I said. “A little bruised, but…”

She shrugged, and led the way out of station and back to the Way-node in silence. It gave me time to think about Gramawl, Kareesh and what they were doing. This was Kareesh’s doing, I knew that now, but what was it she had planned? In order to discover that, I needed to find her, but if Gramawl couldn’t find her, then what chance did I have? She’d vanished, after all those years sequestered in the tunnels below the Underground Station. I was not looking forward to telling Blackbird that Kareesh had disappeared.