Motherstone (19 page)

He kept close to Susan and Thief. Soon the ramp was broken by fissures. Fractured stone jutted from the walls. A rustling and soft whistling came from the cracks. People moved in there, flattened out like crabs. Arms – or claws – might reach out and touch him.

‘How far, Nick?’ Jimmy asked.

‘We must be halfway. It flattens out in front of the throne-hall. There’s another set of doors to go through first.’

‘They mightn’t be standin’ after that earthquake. It looks like this tunnel’s closin’ in.’

Boulders piled the floor. They climbed to a lamp burning on top. ‘There’s a hole here, like a slide. They’ll ’ave swings next.’ It angled steeply down and Jimmy’s voice set up echoes in it. Light showed at the bottom but they could not tell how far away it was.

‘They got us in a corner. How about you tryin’ it, ole feller?’

Ben did not hesitate. He climbed into the chute, almost blocking the entrance, but found more room as he went down. His claws scraped on the stone. He seemed to shrink, a toy bear, and a long time went by before he reached the bottom. They saw him sniff the air and cast about.

Jimmy said, ‘O.K. She’s all clear.’ He climbed in and the others followed. The slope would have set them sliding at any misstep. They felt for cracks and ridges and Thief and Bess held on with their claws. It took a long time, and wore their knees raw, but at last they scrambled out; and found themselves in the tunnel again, with rubble piled to the ceiling at the back of the chute. A torch burned on the wall. The way ahead was fractured into steps.

‘We must’a’ come three or four levels,’ Jimmy said. ‘They sure do their best ter keep it open.’

‘What time is it?’ Susan asked.

‘I’d say we got half an hour.’

‘The Motherstone’s close. I can feel it.’

‘The light around the next bend doesn’t come from a torch,’ Soona said.

‘So we made it. But I think I hear our mates comin’ down. I’d just as soon not have ’em. I reckon Ben an’ Bess can cork this hole.’

The Varg saw what was needed. They rolled stones from the rubble and piled them at the opening from the chute. Then they shoved a large flat boulder on the top, jamming it hard, and the hole was closed. In a moment clubs beat on it, iron scraped, but the boulder was firm.

‘They won’t shift that,’ Jimmy said. ‘Now let’s ’ave a shufti at this Mummystone.’

‘No,’ Susan said. ‘Just me and Soona and Aenlocht. And Thief.’

‘We’ll let yer do what yer hafter. But there might be someone lickin’ ’is chops down there.’

‘We’ll come until we see the Motherstone,’ Nick said.

Soona leaned on Aenlocht. ‘We must hurry.’ Her face had gone dead white, and the Hotlander, fierce in his paint, put his arm around her and held her up. He too seemed uncertain on his feet. It was as if they were drained of strength and kept on moving by an act of will. Thief pushed Susan.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘But once you’ve seen, stay back. What we have to do is just for us.’ She did not wait for Jimmy but pushed ahead. The tunnel turned and another rock pile stood in the way. The light came from the top through a narrow hole. It made none of the flickering of the torches, and spread with an even-ness beyond the power of flame. Yet it was faint, almost accidental, and Susan remembered how the dome of force about the Motherstone had seemed to keep its light to itself. Soona and Aenlocht came to her side.

‘We go up there. Through that hole.’

‘Quickly, Susan, quickly. If I am to do it I must do it now.’

‘Stay close to me.’ She climbed the rock pile to the light. Thief went half a step ahead. He thrust his head into the hole, then wormed his body through. She saw him standing on the other side, and heard his mew of wonder. She crawled into the hole and came out beside him on a ledge and saw what it was that astonished him. The Stone. The Motherstone, the globe of light. It was far below, in a basin on the throne-room floor. Just like it was a hundred turns ago, Susan thought. Everything had changed, but not that: the grey stone, shaped like an office desk, with the golden apple enclosing it. She remembered how the light had hummed like bees when she stood inside, and how it had seemed to have the sweetness of honey – and how the Halves had fused into the Stone in a crackle of fire. She could not see them, but they were there. They would always be there, until O ended. Or until someone came, wearing the Mark, and lifted them, and changed them for new. The bag about her neck seemed to weigh like lead.

‘Is that it? Is that the Motherstone?’

‘Yes, that’s it.’ She had not heard Soona come to her side, but she took the fishergirl’s hand; and Aenlocht’s on her other side. They seemed to form this pattern naturally: the Knower, with the Pale One and the Red One flanking her.

Nick and Dawn and Jimmy crawled through the hole, but the Varg were too big. They would never see the Motherstone.

‘We’re up by the ceiling,’ Nick said. ‘The doors must be blocked. Otis Claw’s throne was over there. The last time we saw this place it was full of Halfmen.’

‘There are bones around the light,’ Dawn said.

Jimmy was peering down. ‘There’s ridges for climbin’. She’s pretty hairy.’

Susan heard their voices as though from a distance. They seemed to have nothing to do with her. She had already seen the way to go. One of the buttresses was split and jutting edges made holds for a descent. Thief went first. He was delicate and sure as a mountain goat and in a moment reached the empty floor. He gave a call. Aenlocht and Soona went next. The throne-room seemed very far away, but Aenlocht guided the fishergirl. They clung, they stepped, angling back and forth, and stood at last by the Bloodcat, looking up at Susan.

Her fear of heights made her tremble, but this climb was easier than others she had made, and she lowered herself and found the first ridge with her toes.

‘Take it easy, Sue. There’s no hurry,’ she heard Nick say. How did he know? Already Osro had his Weapon aimed. The battle might be only moments away. She climbed fast, not looking down, keeping her eyes fixed on the stone in front of her face. It was coloured by the glow from the light and her shadow moved on it not like an ordinary shadow but as though penetrated by colour. After all these turns, the light seemed to recognize and reach out for her. She imagined she felt warmth on her back.

She climbed round to the side of the buttress and saw a deep angle by the wall. No light reached in and she looked away from it quickly, knowing she would fall if she entered. Across the face she went, moving with care, and angled back. She came near the shadow again, but this was the last time. One more traverse and she would be on the floor with Thief and Soona.

The Bloodcat screamed a warning. She did not know what it was for. He leaped up the buttress but found no claw-hold and fell back. Something she mistook for a snake came darting out of the angle at her throat. It made a gleam in the shadow, it was white and long and angular, and she thought it was going to bite. She let go her hold, and understood too late it was an arm, the head and fangs were hand and nails. They tore her face and ripped her shirt. Then she was falling.

She seemed to turn over, and heard her scream following her. Aenlocht and Soona came zooming up – but that was illusion, she was falling, and somehow they were under her. She felt the jarring of bodies, and fists that seemed to punch all over her. The fishergirl and the Hotlander boy had moved as though a single brain controlled them, and Thief had moved, all three with the same explosive speed, and come between Susan and the floor. Her weight crushed them. She burst through their arms and struck at hip and thigh on Thief’s rib-cage. Then all four lay tangled at the foot of the buttress. Susan was stunned, she could not see properly, was aware of their faces flashing at her; and then of other faces, boiling out of the dark, of yellow bodies rolling like a stream, and pale mad eyes. She heard Thief scream and Aenlocht give his fighting cry, and saw them strike, and blood leap out and splash the stone, and felt Soona dragging her back. Then she was on her feet, yelling too. ‘The light! Run for the light. Aenlocht! Thief!’

They moved in a knot, all four together, running towards the basin in the floor where the light shone. The people followed – women old and young, bent and quick, silent except for the scraping of long-nailed feet on the floor. They held make-shift weapons: shards of stone, spikes of wood. More came from holes and broken corners of the throne-hall. They were the dwellers in this place, they were the guardians of the Motherstone. This was what the jungle men had been herding them to.

Susan came to the edge of the depression. The floor sloped down to the base of the dome, ten metres away; but she stopped. The basin was filled with bones. It was like the remains of some huge cannibal feast. She understood: this came from a hundred turns of sacrifice. These people, these dark-dwellers, worshipped the Motherstone as a god, and brought it offerings: animals, people. They flung them against the light, where they burned as Otis Claw had burned. His charred bones must lie at the bottom of this heap. It sickened her. Everything on O seemed to turn to evil.

She swung round to face the women, these hideous priestesses of their god, and held up her hand. ‘Stop!’ They were ten paces back, pressing in their hundreds, and setting up at last a soft anticipatory cackle. But they stopped, and leaned towards her, and pulsed and breathed like a single organism.

‘Stay back,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to throw us to your god. We came willingly. We will offer ourselves.’

They hissed, they throbbed, they shivered with dread and desire. But they held their place, ten steps back. Little broken murmurings and cacklings ran through them. What Susan offered was something new. One said, ‘The God is hungry. He has not eaten since yesternight.’

Susan looked down. There were bones of every sort, human, animal, bird, even fish – and some, she was sure, were children’s bones. She thought of them herded down, and given to these women, and hauled to the dome. And thrown against it. After that, what remained of their flesh was eaten. There was no trace left on these bones. The sour stink in the hall came from the living not the dead. She had no doubt that what she was about to do was right.

‘Soona? Aenlocht?’

‘Yes. Let us go.’ The fishergirl held herself very straight. ‘Stay back,’ she said to the women. ‘We will give ourselves to your god. But I promise you – we are the last.’

‘Go! Go! He waits.’

‘Come on,’ Susan said. ‘Stay with me. Stay close, Thief.’

She took Soona’s hand and Aenlocht’s hand. Thief put himself behind her, with his head brushing her leg, and they started for the light. Bones rolled greasily under their feet, and snapped and settled. The women lapped round the basin, leaning inwards. But Susan had no fear of the light. It had welcomed her once and would welcome again. The evil was out there, in the women.

She reached the light. It curved up and over. The Motherstone sat grey and neutral in the centre – and she saw the Halves, just as she had placed them long ago. They made a little pool, two colours, clear as water.

‘Are those the Halves?’ Soona whispered.

‘Yes.’ She tightened her grip on Soona’s hand, but the fishergirl did not falter. Aenlocht too showed no uncertainty. Only Thief was disturbed. He turned his head at Susan and made a snarl.

‘It’s all right, Thief. I have the Mark. The light will welcome us.’ She sent him an image of them standing inside the dome. Then she said, ‘Keep hold of me. All step through together,’ and she sent a last look back at the women, almost a message, telling them that their time was over, and warning them of what was to come.

The bones lay almost chest high outside the dome. Going down was like jumping down a bank. They did it without hurry; and heard the women scream with disbelief. Then they were inside and the noise was a murmur. A downy warmth wrapped round them, and a sweetness penetrated their skin and filled their lungs. Soona and Aenlocht held each other, Thief sank on his haunches and purred. But Susan looked back and raised a warning hand at the women. They had come crawling over the bones and looked in with their mad yellow eyes. Their mouths howled, their teeth gleamed; and one, in her fury, clawed the light and burned in a flash of fire. Her blackened body fell on the bones. But the others did not retreat. They glared in, howling – like ghosts at a window, Susan thought.

She turned away. She could not face them. She felt at her throat for the Halves. And then her cry filled the dome, it filled the throne-hall. It was a cry of anguish and rage and despair. Gone! The Halves were gone. The hand striking from the darkness had robbed her. The Halves had been torn from her throat, and there was no way to get them back.

Nick had seen the arm dart out like a snake. Saw it strike: saw the treasure it returned with. Susan fell. It was over in a second. Aenlocht had her, she was safe. So he forgot her, he let all his energies concentrate on the Halves, and before he had made any decision, found himself halfway down the buttress. Jimmy was coming awkwardly behind, and Dawn had taken a different way. She reached his side as he angled down the ledge to the darkness where Susan had been struck.

‘Someone was in here. Someone got the Halves.’

‘Careful, Nick.’

He took no notice, but hauled himself in and stood in a crack splitting the wall. A dim light showed at the end. He thought he heard a scuttling in the dark.

‘They’re in here.’

Jimmy arrived. ‘Let me go first, Nick.’

‘I can go faster.’ He saw something blur the light, and hauled himself along the crack sideways like a crab. He came out in a cave. A reed torch burned on the wall and he wrenched it out and held it high. Dawn came to his side, and Jimmy crashed out on his hands and knees and stood up cursing.

‘People live here,’ Dawn said, pointing at bits of cloth, implements of stone and wood, lying against the walls.

‘It’s a doss-house,’ Jimmy growled. ‘But I reckon they’re all out there chasin’ Susie.’

‘Listen.’ A scuttling came from the dark. ‘One of them isn’t.’ Nick pushed the torch ahead, and went forward fast and cautiously. More nests of rag and rubbish where the women lived and slept. The cave bent. Another torch burned on the wall and Jimmy took it. They came to alcoves chipped in the walls, with hangings over them, and Nick ripped them down, exposing dens fitter for animals than humans. All were empty. He began to give up hope. This cave could go on for miles and the woman they were chasing must know every corner. She could be hiding in any one of these tangles or rags and rubbish. He began to tear and kick them.