Whitemantle

The whole weight of it seemed to be falling upon him, and as he looked away he thought that the character of the City had changed. Hereabouts the streets were narrower, and the aspect of the ground felt dull and blighted. They were now so close to the Spire that he could see dark motes in the air, circling its top. Ill-begotten things were fighting and disputing, or so it seemed, about some high platform.

‘Birds?’ Willow said, following his gaze.

‘They are not birds,’ Gwydion muttered darkly. ‘Do you not realize the size of them? They are bone demons, come to feed on human remains.’

‘Bone demons?’

‘Ugh!’ Will grimaced. ‘You mean, there are dead bodies left up there? Exposed?’

‘They call it the Bier of Eternity. When a High Warden dies, his remains are not hidden within a chapter house like those of lesser Fellows.’

‘That’s horrible.’

Gwydion’s grunt was dismissive. ‘The Sightless Ones make singular claims about what happens when a man ends his days, dangerous claims that play upon the weakness of fear, and one form in particular: the fear of death. They intensify it greatly, for they know that in the end they can make a profit from it. What do you think they sell to make such stores of gold? Have I not already told you what is meant by the Great Lie?’

Will did not care to hear more. He fell back and walked a pace or two behind his wife, watching to see that nothing unpleasant happened. She would not let go of Bethe for a moment, nor did she pay any heed to the ragged men who reached out to tug at the hems of her skirts. Yet Will did pause, touched, despite his fears, to see a press of beggars crowding expectantly on the other side of a barred portal. It was the begging hole of a hospice or lazar house, one of the morbid lodgings that Gwydion had once mentioned. The Sightless Ones maintained such houses to draw in the sick, though those who were admitted were expected to feed themselves by imploring passers-by to give them alms. Deformed men whose auras burned dim thrust hands and stumps up through the bars, crying pitifully. Skull-like faces pressed together into the light and the stench of unwashed bodies gusted from the hole. The spectacle was horrifying and made Will take a step back. But he could not look away. The beggar who most caught Will’s eye was heavily mantled in grey. A deep hood hid his face, but it did little to disguise him.

Suddenly, Will’s belly clenched – his feelings flashed dangerously, and he thought of Chlu – but it was not Chlu. Chlu could not be here, surely, for the queen and Maskull had gone into the north and the Dark Child must have gone with them…

Will continued to stare at the beggar, unsure why he had been so affected by him. What had marked him out, packed as he was among so many other beggars? He was certainly large. Will looked at his outstretched forearm. It was solidly muscular, though his hand was swathed in filthy rags. He seemed troubled, and, for all his strength, less adept at beggary than the rest, though hardly a man on the point of losing his will to live.

Will understood from the way the beggar inclined his head as he thrust his bowl through the iron bars that he was blind. Then with a shock he realized that the rags the man wore were the tattered remains of a Fellow’s garb. He was no beggar, but their warder…

Will recoiled, but then he steadied himself and some strange impulse of charity came over him, for this man, though he was a Fellow, seemed somehow more needy even than the beggars who surrounded him.

When Will brought out an apple from his pack it was quickly seized and josded away before the Fellow could take it, so he brought out another and deliberately guided the man’s bandaged hand to it. This time it was taken and Will turned away, driven back in part by the foul stink of the place.

‘Why did you do that?’ Gwydion asked as Will caught them up.

‘Even their warden was hungry. He was begging too. Don’t they feed their own inside the Fellowship in Trinovant?’

Gwydion brushed the matter off. ‘They are drinkers of blood. Why did you give him an apple?’

‘Because he wanted it. And because giving is getting.’ Will’s solemnity melted away and he smiled. ‘That’s something I once learned from feeding ducks.’

When they came to the end of the street the way opened out into a space dominated by the massive structure of the Spire. The foundation storeys and the monument that stood opposite its entrance were wholly faced in black stone. The Spire itself was railed off and the area around it paved in a complicated pattern of black and white stone across which Fellows in yellow garb patrolled. Surrounding the Spire beyond the spiked rail was what looked at first like a market, but Will soon saw there were no buyers at these craftsmen’s stalls. Each booth had its own canvas awning. Each was occupied by a different kind of worker. There were butchers and bakers, metalsmiths and wood-turners, coiners and token-makers, bodgers and cobblers, tinkers and money-changers. Smoke was rising from many of the stalls, and there was the smell of charcoal and the ringing of hammers upon anvils.

‘See how the Fellowship draws in so many of the useful trades and binds folk unto itself,’ Gwydion said. ‘But these craftsmen are not serving the commerce of the City. None of what they make is used beyond the Fellowship.’

‘Then, is the rest of it set in store?’ Will asked, seeing the quantity of goods that was made here.

The wizard grunted. ‘That question shows that you little appreciate the scale of wealth that the Fellowship commands. What you see here is power, for through it the Grand High Warden exercises a torturesome control.’

Will frowned. ‘Torturesome, you say?’

‘Surely. For on the other side of the Spire is a yard such as this, except that there the artisans’ business is the breaking apart of whatever is made on this side.’

Will balked. ‘What on earth is the point of that?’

‘By this means Grand High Warden Isnar regulates every key trade in the City. He can quickly destroy any cooper or candle-maker or any other producer of wares who dares to displease him. He has succeeded in strangling this city and many another, for what could be more torturesome to a man than the prospect of having his livelihood taken away?’

‘But what about the famous Trinovant Guilds?’ Willow asked. ‘The mercers and drapers? The grocers and vintners and ironmongers and all the rest? Don’t they fight back?’

‘They cannot. Their power is now all but broken by the Fellowship.’

As they drew closer to the Spire grounds, Will saw rows of money-changers’ booths and beyond them the block-like monument. Such an edifice stood outside every Chapter House, no matter how small, but no other in the land was like this. It was as big as a house, and its top was decked with statues of monstrous animals and its sides cut with mottoes in the Tiborean tongue. The words were mostly obscured by spills of wax from ten thousand red candles that forever burned among the bronze or basalt legs of the beasts, but the letters were carved deeply and Will made out the legend.

SEIUQ OLEAC NI ALOS

When he asked Gwydion what it said, the wizard told him, ‘The Sightless Ones cherish many strange utterances, though their meanings are more often than not meant to be mysterious to outsiders. That one says, “There is rest only in the sky.”’

‘What does it mean?’ Willow asked.

But Gwydion only shrugged and said, ‘Who can say? They call it “a mystery”. They call by that name every piece of nonsense they choose to spout, for they hope in that way to pinch off all reasoned thought about it. Remember: it is ever their aim to convince others of that which is not. That is how they gather power to themselves.’

Will heard coughs and the clink of mason’s steel on stone. A row of skinny prisoners were chained in a line, white as millers with the dust of their task. They were rough-fashioning stone blocks into balls of the sort that were shot from great guns, and Will grieved to think that such a destructive trade must now be profitable. He wondered if these products were likewise broken up on the far side of the Spire, or if they had already been sold to an arsenal of war.

Next to the shot-carvers was a row of decaying tents that served as stable and fodder store for half a dozen chestnut horses. A large brown and black dog sniffed suspiciously at the air, while men with cruel faces lounged at their ease nearby. All were dressed in well-used riding suits of red leather.

‘Are they messengers?’ Will whispered doubtfully as they came almost to the monument.

Gwydion grunted and lowered his voice. ‘The Fellowship has no need of messengers. The vanes of their spires and towers do all their talking for them.’

‘Then what do these men do?’

‘They are the enforcers of the Iron Rule.’

‘You mean these are the men who take children away from villages that cannot pay the tithe?’ Will’s eyes narrowed as he met their stares. Two or three of them were looking towards Willow now, showing frank interest in the child in her arms.

A flash of anger burst in Will’s heart, but just then the dog came roaring forward, teeth bared, barking ferociously, until it was yanked back by its chain. The sight made Willow flinch away, and as Bethe’s cry pierced the air, Will turned towards her. Then something brushed his cheek and struck the ground a pace or two away.

It was a crossbow bolt.

CHAPTER THREE THE BIER OF ETERNITY

Those enforcers of the Iron Rule who saw what had happened rose to their feet and a shout went up. Daggers were drawn, cover taken. The enforcers were men well used to coming under attack. They moved to cover, alert as weasels, looking high up on the monument to the place from which the crossbow bolt must have been shot, but they lacked the means to reply and so their caution was all the greater.

Will saw that the shaft of the bolt was short and set with two triangular leather flights. So powerfully had it been flung into the earth that its iron head had been wholly buried. He knew with utter certainty who had shot at him and why, and when a black-swathed man moved from behind the rump of a great stone griffin Willow knew it too.

‘So Chlu didn’t go north after all!’ she cried as Will bundled her between the tents and pressed her hard up against the monument’s base. Then she saw the look on his face and knew what was in his mind. ‘Will, no!’

But he was already climbing. His hands thrust against the pole that held the nearest awning taut. His feet found purchase on the letters graven into the plinth. When he reached to grip a bronze griffin’s claw and haul himself up, a red waterfall of molten wax cascaded over him and froze in his hair and on his skin.

He gasped at the sudden burning on face, neck and hands, but as the pain passed he saw that above him the crossbow’s string was being drawn two-handedly upwards. Chlu straightened his back, fingers straining as he pulled on the cord. A second bolt was clamped between his teeth.

Time stood still in Will’s head, blotted out by a certainty as strong as any rage. The wax slid under his feet and fingers, but in another moment he had pulled himself upright and was facing his twin. When Chlu saw there was not enough time to cock and raise his weapon, he stood up straight, ready to face him.

Their eyes met. Will felt a tremor pass through him, a moment of horror to be looking into eyes so like his own, yet so informed by hatred.

‘Tell me what I’ve done to make you want to kill me,’ he demanded. ‘If you bear a grievance, tell me what it is or, by the moon and stars, I’ll stamp your face into the mud here and now!’

The other’s malicious stare wavered as a laugh gurgled from him, but he made no reply.

‘I know who you are. Master Gwydion told me everything. I don’t blame you for what you’ve done. I just want us to talk out our differences.’ Will held out open hands. ‘Listen to me! Don’t you know that we’re brothers?

But Chlu’s growling laugh cut him off. It was a deep, barely controlled, animal noise that seemed to catch in the back of his throat. ‘I’m not your brother – I am your doom!‘ He swung the weapon in his hand at Will’s head.

Will raised an arm and fended off the blow, but he was not fast enough. One of the steel prods caught in his face, tearing open his left cheek, and as the crossbow clattered to the ground Will was knocked backwards across the plinth and tangled among bronze limbs. By the time he had recovered his feet Chlu had fled.

There were cries below as the men in red tried to shadow Chlu along the monument, but he had already found a way down where they could not follow him. A stone yale, a horned, tusked animal, rearing up on its hind legs, stood at one end of the monument. Chlu had threaded his way between its legs and leapt down into the maze of black and white paving that formed the closed precinct beyond the iron fence. Now he ran unmolested towards the base of the Spire itself.

The Vigilants who guarded the gate were ill-prepared for their swift-moving trespasser. Chlu dodged them easily and disappeared inside the Spire’s vast, ornamented gates. Will felt a warning turn over his guts, but a great surge of desire thrust him onward. This was not a simple wish to corner Chlu, but an overwhelming need to find the answer. He knew he must not let his twin get away.

‘Who comes?’ came the cry from the Fellows. ‘Who comes?’

They lifted their heads, turning like beasts testing the air, and Will saw how difficult it would be to follow Chlu now that the guardians of the Spire had been stirred up.

Blood dripped from his cheek. He wiped his hand on the waxy shoulder of his jerkin, then he leapt down from the monument and ran straight to where the knot of gate guards were standing. More were hurrying in from all quarters now, groping towards the great iron doors. They moved slowly, no match for Will’s own fleetness of foot, but they were armed: cudgels had been drawn, and whips snaked from sleeves and cracked out towards him, but only four Vigilants directly barred the way.

He put his shoulder down and charged, knocking them aside like so many skittles. Ahead the vast doors were closing. Three Fellows pushed on each, heaving them round on massive hinges. He threw himself forward, dived headlong through the gap into a darkness that was suddenly filled with echoes as the great slabs slammed shut.

He felt himself skidding along an ice-smooth floor, then he lay for a moment trying not to breathe. He was in total blackness. Whatever sense had given him warning before he entered the Spire, it screamed at him now. He stared hard, willing his eyes to pierce the gloom, then he began to see dim shapes in the vast cavern that soared above him. Brown light was seeping in from somewhere, and as his eyes adjusted so the thought began to harden that he had been deliberately drawn into a trap.

He was at the bottom of a curving stair that rose up to an immense height. As the echoes died away, there came the sound of footfalls from above, mounting higher and higher. Again Will strained to hear, but the more he tried the more the sounds faded and the less sure he was.

If he opened his mind he would know instantly where Chlu had gone, but he dared not do it in this place. The air was rank and thick and quiet as a blanket, but he was sure there were Fellows groping silently in the darkness, and still more coming from hidden holes to left and right.

When he drew breath the stink of burnt grease laced the air. That and some oversweet fumigant seemed to rob his breath of vigour. And there was something else too, a musty note that he could not quite recognize. He crawled towards the stair, then began to feel his way up. The surfaces were cold here, solid and unmoving, made of dense basalt that drank in what little light there was. But he could feel the intricate decoration that was carved into every part of this curious ceremonial staircase as it carried him up in a spiral. Beneath his fingers the steps were dished, worn down by use, and in the middle the stone was smooth, whereas everywhere else the surfaces were sticky, as if years of accumulated grease had varnished them. Feeling his way forward on all fours kept him away from the place he most feared, the stair’s unguarded edge, but after a while going blindly forward he was hit by a sudden terror and halted. In the dark corner of the stair he saw guards.

That frozen moment spun out longer and longer, then the stinging in his cheek pushed itself back into his consciousness. He flung himself into a corner, not knowing whether to go on or turn back. They can smell blood, he reminded himself, but then shouts came from below, words ringing in the air.

‘Follow the defilers…’

By now the pursuit had gathered in strength in the concourse far below. Fifty of them at least, a hundred maybe. Too many to burst through, too many to escape – and if those massive entrance doors were the only way out…?

It seemed his decision had been made for him. When he turned again, he had resolved to fight his way past the motionless guardians above no matter what. He approached the first of them stealthily. It made no sound, nor any move towards him. He had almost crept past it when the dam that held back his fear broke. He lashed out with all his strength and almost broke his arm against the unyielding breast. It was only then that he realized that what had checked him was a statue – a row of Grand High Wardens, standing there on the landing, eternally guarding their dark niches.

A mixture of relief and anger flooded him. His heart hammered as he climbed ever upward, until his breath heaved in the bad air and he had to halt again. But not for long. Maybe, after all, there was an undercurrent of meaning in the mysterious message inscribed on the monument far below: ‘There is rest only in the sky.’

Up it must be! he thought, pushing himself onward. It’s the only way. And if there’s no escape, what does it matter? That’s not the reason I came here.

But what had decided him? Had it really been his choice to wildly follow Chlu? He doubted it now, for it felt like the insistent power that sometimes showed itself within him. The power that Gwydion called Arthur. That power had flowed before, and always at crucial moments. It was a mighty power – ancient, courageous and strong – but it was a flower that had not yet fully bloomed. Its mark was a sure and certain impulse, so that when it lay upon him he did not think of consequences but behaved as if he was doing exactly what was needed to urge the world towards the true path. Whatever that power was, it had sent him to corner Chlu, so corner him he must, and what better place could there be than a dead-end way up in the sky?

But what then? a less certain voice inside him asked. What will you do when you have him at your mercy? Will you have the strength to do what must be done?

It seemed when he looked up that the gloom within the Spire had lifted a little. And so it had – the walls here were pierced by narrow shafts of light. They revealed tiers of ever-narrowing, ever steepening steps circling the column of stale black air. Will’s foot skidded off a broken tread. A sudden fear of falling into the pit stabbed his groin and he gasped and threw himself hard against the wall. Here, far above the hubbub below, sound carried with greater clarity. Again he drew breath, a cold sweat spangling his face. Blood was still dripping freely from his left cheek, leaving a trail that would unerringly lead his pursuers to him.

But at least the Vigilants had satisfied him on one point. The voice below had said ‘defilers’, which meant not only that Chlu was still at large, but that he was not working with the Fellowship to spring a trap on him.

It was scant comfort, as the sound of clicking footfalls came from above. Will’s eyes tracked a faint shape stepping ever upward on the far side of the darkness. He wanted to call out, but knew he had better not give himself away to those eyeless men scanning the darkness below. He pressed on, grimly determined, climbing until the steps gave out. The great spiral had many turns, but here, at a mouthlike portal in the wall, it abruptly ended.

He passed through the arch, glad to be off the stair and away from the void, but he saw that much lay between the inner and outer skins of the Spire. To left and right there were doorways and stairs, landings and passages, many of them numbered, but bafflingly so. Some ways were sealed behind iron doors, while others stood open. All directions led off into darkness, but near the stairs thin lancets admitted spears of daylight. Better still, the ground was dusty and there were scuff marks. He followed the trail to the foot of a stair and climbed higher, pausing occasionally to make sure he was still closing on his quarry. When he had mounted to the forty-ninth stair, the Spire suddenly grew meaner in its decoration and he halted again, oppressed by a mighty warning from within.

Was Chlu now in his trap…or was it the other way around?

The idea still troubled him that Chlu had led him into the Spire on purpose. Why? Why should he think that? This was certainly a place where he would be stripped of Gwydion’s help. And if Chlu had not gone north with the fleeing queen, then maybe Maskull hadn’t either…

The air was rank here. The musty smell had grown worse. Will tried to swallow his burgeoning fear, but tasted the taint of death. He took stock. Each flight of stairs was plainly made now, every one a little narrower and steeper than the last. He had come to unfrequented heights, and whereas the floor had been greasy with spots of old candle wax, now the stonework was bare. Stark landings opened onto the great void within the Spire, and the stairwells through which he climbed looked down dizzyingly past dozens of floors. Flimsy iron rails were set around the edges, low enough that Will imagined himself crashing through. But at least the mute statues had disappeared along with all the carved and patterned marble. Here was only dust and pigeon droppings on the grey flags, and around him plain arches and slender pillars of iron, so that his journey seemed to him shadowed by the shedding away of earthly power. He saw that an ascent of the Spire was meant to parallel the life of a Fellow, from his entry into the Fellowship up through the various grades and degrees, losing his sense of self, until finally he came to death. And here, written in stone, were the austere last stages of the journey that an Elder made into the darkness as he departed his sour life.

A shriek shocked him out of his thoughts. He heard groaning and grinding in the bowels of the building. The nearest of the pursuing Fellows was still many floors below. It would be some time before they arrived. Yet Will was forced to search each landing before moving on, listening warily now so as to be certain that no ambush awaited him and to make sure that Chlu could not double back and slip past him.

Will could not easily tell how high he had climbed. All he knew was it was a long way. His breath came in gasps and his legs ached. And there was that foetid smell again, something vile that carried down on the draughts lacing these dismal corridors.

As the Spire narrowed, so the fear of Maskull weighed more heavily on Will’s mind. He cast about for ways to encourage himself. ‘Chlu thinks I fear the Sightless Ones,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘He chose this as his refuge because he thought I wouldn’t come here. I bet he hasn’t counted on being hunted down. He hasn’t bargained for this!’

He clenched his fists. No fear, not even the fear of Maskull, would undermine him. This time Chlu was going to have to turn at bay. This time he would be brought to account.

Something heavy lashed out at him from the gloom. Will ducked and it glanced off the top of his head. A length of chain clanged then pulled taut, wrapping itself in a spiral grip around the nearest pillar. He saw his chance and slammed his fist into Chlu’s face, but Chlu put his head down and Will felt the bones of his hand jar in pain as his punch connected instead with the bow of Chlu’s skull. Chlu roared and charged him down onto the filthy floor, then reached out again for his weapon. But Will kicked out with his foot and the force of the blow threw him back. They both watched as, between them, the chain unwound itself from the pillar, snaked slackly over the side of the staircase and vanished.