Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter
wasn’t like that.’
Chlu’s voice rose and he jumped from the Bier. ‘Oh, but it was. While I was sent to tend pigs among filthy villagers, you were taken to be schooled alongside the sons of a duke! But Lord Maskull found me and pulled me from my torment! He took me out of the prison village of Little Slaughter, withdrew me before the evil enchanter could shatter it and murder me! Lord Maskull rescued me! He set me free!’
Will was aware that the bone demons had gathered once more, and were spitting and cackling. ‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. It was Maskull who broke Little Slaughter. Maskull found you, Chlu, on that we agree, but he removed you from Little Slaughter not to help you or to set you free. He doesn’t want to share overlordship of the future with anyone. He’s using you as his instrument. He needs to have you as his lodestone to seek me out. That’s been his purpose all along.’
‘That’s a view that puts you at the centre of all things, and makes me the villain!’ Again that bitter, unbelieving laugh. ‘Lord Maskull wants to find you all right. He wants more than that. He’s sent me to kill you. And so I shall.’
Chlu threw wide his hands and the bone demons flocked as if at his command. A purplish-red glow like an angry wound pulsed from him. ‘You see how I make them obey me?’
The creatures jostled forward, encircling Will, pulled by Chlu’s hatred, pushed by their own fear. They dared not close on the green-blue aura that rippled around Will’s form. But then Chlu bent down, scooped up the dripping skull of the dead Elder and flung it with all his strength. As Will blocked it filth, stinking and foul, blinded him, and he spat the vileness from his lips. Then, without warning, his aura exploded in all directions, filling the world with an immensely bright green light.
All Will could hear were the shrieks of the bone demons as they took to the air, and then came the rattling of chains. When Will regained his sight he saw that Chlu had vanished once more.
There was no doubt where Chlu had gone. A chain dangled from a hole in the vaulting. It hung over the Bier, and was swinging. Chlu must have hauled himself up through the hole, and Will knew that he must follow.
But as he pulled himself up on the chain he felt Chlu’s struggles cease and knew that his twin had found a ledge higher up. Once through the hole, Will saw that the space that formed the tip of the Spire was hollow. The sharp cone rose up a dozen times the height of a man, its interior lit by four great vents.
The light was dim and diffuse – dust had been kicked into the air, but Will saw that six huge chains depended from a platform at the top. The structure was trussed internally with huge beams and straps of iron that held the stonework together. Chlu had swung up into these rafters and had begun to climb along them and up a series of ladders.
‘Come on, little brother!’ Chlu howled. ‘Catch me if you can!’
Will heard the undertones of his own spirit in the challenge, and, undaunted, he climbed onward. But the way was treacherous. Always go first through a thicket, but second through a mire – that was something Wortmaster Gort used to say while out on his long walks. Going second here definitely put the follower at a disadvantage.
The ladders were crumbling – many rungs were wormy. They cracked under Will’s feet. Even the lashings that held them to the beams were dry and brittle. No stonemason or carpenter had come into the summit in many a long year, so that nothing had been done by way of repair or renewal. Now that Chlu had climbed some distance ahead he began to unrope the ladder tops and kick them away. He laughed as he tore up whatever was at hand to throw down, but he could not halt Will’s progress up into what, for one of them, would be a dead end.
Will fended off the missiles and pressed on doggedly, coming at last to a place about two ladder-lengths below the top platform. Here his daring faced a sterner test. The walkway had been almost wholly smashed by Chlu. In the middle all that remained was a single balk of timber. Will knew that one false step would mean falling to his death. He stopped and raised his arms to Chlu in a last appeal to see sense, but his twin’s reply was to fling at him the iron he had been using to tear up the planks.
Will took a step forward, but was immediately thrown off balance, and when he put out a hand he found one of the giant chains. Each link was as long as a man was tall and all six chains came out of a line of holes pierced in the upper platform. They disappeared far below, somewhere near the Bier, but what their purpose was, Will could not see.
He hugged the nearest link to save himself. It shivered as it came under tension and began to move downwards. Having grasped it, Will dared not let go, and so he was pulled to his knees then dragged down off the beam. For a moment he swung out wide over the drop, all his weight held on one twisted forearm. His legs dangled and his guts filled with a paralysing terror that snatched away all power over his body.
Don’t look down, he told himself in a silent scream. Keep your head up and hang on!
Distant grinding noises rose up from the space below when the chains jerked into motion. Will felt terror engulf him. His breath came in short gasps. The imperative to keep his grip consumed him as the pain in his wrist peaked. The struggle locked his muscles in a death-like cramp. He cried out, thrashed, managed to turn himself, then captured the link gratefully between his thighs. He squeezed his chest against the link and knew that he had bought enough time until the pain subsided and he could regain his courage. It had not been elegant, but he had avoided the fall.
Of course! he thought as he clung on. It’s the vane! These chains are how they work the mechanism. They must be sending out a message.
He forced himself to recall what was up above. On the very top of the Spire the great vane would be swinging and dancing this way and that, its various parts clacking and clanging as it sent the news of an unthinkable defilement to every chapter house in Trinovant.
‘What’s the matter?’ Chlu shouted in delight. ‘Are you finding it hard to get close to me?’
Will hung on, both in body and mind. He was shaking with shock, but the pain was ebbing and it was clear from the fingers he could still flex that his wrist had not been broken. Cramp complained in every muscle, sweat streamed down his back. It was hot up here, and he realized how much closer he must have come to the sun by now, way up in the middle airs of the sky, where Gwydion said the air lost its virtue and a man’s breathing came hard.
He calmed himself, then he began to think out his best chance. He could fit his foot into the eye at the end of the link and so let one of his legs bear his weight. The chains were within reach of one another and as one stopped moving down another began moving up. So he jammed his other foot into a link on the next chain, which fortunately soon jolted into motion. When that chain stopped, he moved on to a third, which disappointed him by going down again. But still it was clear how he might be carried up and up by making correct guesses. With luck he might get as far as the platform with its six holes.
He clambered from chain to chain, feeling for advantage, but as his mind opened he felt Chlu’s malice interfering with his judgment, willing him to fall. He overshot and saw with horror that just one more upward movement of the chain would carry him up through one of the holes. He would be stripped off the chain like a beetle from a corn stalk.
Fortunately, the next movement took him lower, but his relief lasted only a moment because now he came level with Chlu.
Having kicked away the ladder and guard rail to fling down on Will’s head, Chlu had trapped himself on a narrow ledge. Had they chosen to touch hands they could have done so, but Will’s twin crouched against the wall in that hot, dark space. He snarled, repelled by a consuming hatred, and struggled with something that protruded from the wall.
Will could see no way down, but then Chlu’s hunched shoulder moved, a catch gave way and a bar of brightness pierced the gloom as Chlu threw open a heavy wooden shutter and let in a flood of sunlight. Will