Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter
grumbling sounds that issued from the chain holes were now complemented by the squeaking and squealing of iron joints. For a moment, Chlu’s body blocked the light, but then he climbed through the hole and once more Will was left alone.
The square of blue sky beckoned urgently. He leapt towards it and his fingers scrabbled for purchase, but he managed to get one hand on the sill and launch the other at Chlu’s ankle. The latter kicked him off, and when Will looked out he saw above him the final ladder – a series of iron staples, maybe a couple of dozen in all – leading to the uttermost tip of the Spire.
Chlu was already halfway up that deadly route by the time Will emerged and started after him. The rake of the Spire’s summit cap was severe. The ascent, which was almost vertical, became an overhang as the stone bellied out just below the vane. Brilliant sunshine burned the outline of Will’s shadow onto the weathered sandstone as he forced feet and hands to follow one another. Despite the danger he felt vastly alive. The sun’s heat burned his back, and had filled the rusty iron rungs with heat. The air up here was clean, sweet and he could taste blood in his mouth. It was as if the danger itself had sharpened all his senses, made him aware of every detail…
He looked to himself suspiciously, testing for evidence of magical attack. Was Maskull watching from somewhere? Was that the plan? Had the sorcerer been waiting all along on some rooftop down below, ready to cast a burst of violet fire skyward and sear both his troublesome creations into flaming brands?
Will blocked out the thought and put all of himself into the climb. He also tried to put out of his mind what he had glimpsed from the corner of his eye, but that was more difficult. It seemed as though the wide world below curved away from the Spire in every direction, the drab roofs of the City and then a green land, losing itself in a bright haze of blue which was neither earth nor sky. And against that background he had seen a speckling of dark shapes – bone demons, gathering again.
Will’s certainties told him that a reckoning was at hand. He tried to pull the shreds of his spirit together and scramble faster up the iron staples. The thinking part of him stood aghast at the course he had taken. Why had he done this? He was no murderer. What did he hope to gain by chasing Chlu to this lonely, lofty place? Now he had arrived his actions seemed bizarre and inexplicable. No one could climb such an overhang with a foe like Chlu guarding its top. Only a fool would throw himself at death without surer knowledge that his leaving the world would make a crucial difference.
Even so, there had been no mistaking his inner promptings, the ones he had promised Gwydion he would always try to take account of. The desire was unquestionable: Find him! Get to him! You must!
But what had driven Will on had not been determination, nor any righteous plan. It was not fear or hope of gain that made Chlu attack him. It was a force as elemental as day and night.
Soon, he thought grimly, one or both of us is going to have to die. I feel that, and he feels it too.
A raucous croak awoke Will’s fears. Black wings fluttered, dappling the brightness with shadows. He gritted his teeth then he looked up to see that it was Chlu who had attracted the wrath of the creatures. He had hauled himself up the double rows of ornamental carvings that lay just below the vane, and there he was being swooped upon by black shapes that wheeled and dived at him. But they were not bone demons.
Ravens! he told himself with sudden relief. They’re Bran’s ravens, come from the White Tower!
He took his chance. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up through the overhang, jamming his toes behind the rungs until he had hauled his upper body round to where the capstones were sheathed in lead.
Chlu was struggling on the leaden base of the vane, fighting off the birds that mobbed him. Above, the mechanism’s ribs were grinding and squealing as they turned, a heavy iron pointer wheeling this way and that. Seen this close, the letters were huge, each taller than a man, and the ribs on which they were mounted swept shudderingly around a huge white heart – a heart bled dry of all desire. Like the letters, the fearsome token was no more than a peeling sheet of thin, white-painted copper thrown into motion by levers and sprocket wheels turning below. The haphazardly rotating ribs threatened to cut Will off at the ankles, while the heart turned crazy somersaults in its cradle as it spelled out its arcane message.
Without another word, Will leapt at Chlu and seized him. The ravens scattered as he slammed Chlu up against a stanchion. He tried to hold him there, but Chlu’s fists beat him back with hammer blows. Will threw off the onslaught, knowing he must not use magic to overcome his twin. They traded punch for punch, kick for kick, dodging the flailing vane, somehow avoiding the randomly moving ironwork, and little by little Will forced Chlu back. At last he was pushed out onto the rib that supported the letter E.
Will told him, ‘There’s nowhere left for you to go.’
‘Nowhere’ Chlu gasped, ‘but Hell!’
Arms outstretched for balance, Chlu turned and teetered along the rib in an insanely risky dance. He reached the safety of the giant letter before the support could move and throw him off. There he turned again – not at bay, but triumphantly. He banged the copper sheeting that made up the letter with the flat of his hand, sending out a sound that rolled like thunder.
‘So what’s it to be? Do you have the guts to come for me? Or shall we sit here looking at one another until the Fellows come for you?’
Will shook his head and shot out an accusing finger. ‘You think you can find a way to live forever? You can’t!’
‘It’s the end of this Age. Your old world is finished! Only Lord Maskull has seen what’s coming next. He’s shown me there is a way!’
Will spoke the words that Gwydion had first taught him long ago.
‘First there were nine,
Then nine became seven,
And seven became five.
Now, as sure as the Ages decline,
Three are no more,
But one is alive.’
Chlu showed his teeth. ‘You see? All was prophesied! The one is Lord Maskull!’
‘But what if it’s not like that? What if Master Gwydion is the last phantarch? What then, Chlu?’
Chlu laughed. ‘You’re an ignorant fool, little brother. Your mind is too busy with small things to understand the greatness of the change that’s now upon us. Lord Maskull does not claim to be a phantarch. He never wanted to be that.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s as I told you. You know nothing of the wonders that were shown to me! This is not just the ending of another Age, not just the passing over of one phantarch for another. This is the end of the world!’
‘The end of the world? What do you mean?’
‘Magic has always been draining away, right from the beginning of the world, and now it’s almost gone. This is the end-time, and when the last Age closes our world will become subject to a new power. Another world is coming for us, little brother, and it’s going to swallow us up!’
The ravens cawed and circled, but kept their distance. Down below, the whole beautiful world seemed to have been laid out beneath them. Will held on to the ornamental iron that supported the rib. He was jolted as it revolved, stopped, then revolved again, but nothing could tear his gaze from Chlu’s own. It did not matter what nonsense Chlu talked. It was the strangest of fascinations just to look at him.
Will let Chlu’s words wash over him, barely aware when they broke off. He knew he had no choice but to go out along the rib and see his labour through to the end. He let his eyes fall, tried to judge the best moment to start out along the rib, but its shifts were capricious. They lacked all pattern, so the direction it would next move in was impossible to foresee, and even if he did choose correctly and even if he did reach the end, Chlu would just be able to push him off.
He