Second Night (14 page)

When Alan had first showed him the surveillance system guarding Thunderslea and the forest, they had agreed that they would only turn it on when neither of them was out on the land, trusting at all other times to the horses and their own woodcraft to take care of any unwarranted event or intrusion.

So Al's on sentry duty but he would never leave the door open when he went out – unless it's something to do with the old man?
He went to the foot of the stairs and listened. There was no sound from the study.
He's probably dozing. He does a lot of that nowadays.

He was about to return to the armoury when he saw a line of light showing under the door to what he had always been told was a disused cupboard. Immediately suspicious, he tried the handle. The door was no longer locked. The God was with the Master of the Guardians. The candidate had taken the bait.

CHAPTER 22

The black weapon warmed in his hand as Caz stepped into a narrow vestibule. It smelt of incense and beeswax, underlying the clinging odour of something sweet and alcoholic put down to mature in wood. Skilfully carved cupboards and chests of the finest quality oak lined one wall. A table and a bench of similar workmanship were pushed against the opposite wall. He opened one of the cupboards nearest the shell-shaped marble sink and discovered two small barrels, laid side by side on miniature trestles. A thick drop of golden mead hung on one of the taps.

Another door fitted neatly into the curving wall on the other side of the room. Concealed lighting glowed faintly and grew brighter as he walked along a wide corridor lined on both sides with oak pillars following the curve of the wall. They were carved with intricately intertwined serpents and creatures of Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth. The cream-coloured walls between them were decorated with painted texts, mostly from
Hovamol, The Sayings of the High One,
Caz noted. Two of the wall spaces were left blank.

The spear quivered, the rune glowing vibrant blue on the barbed head, as he came to a flight of stone steps leading down to a low door, hung on wrought iron hinges and let into the inner wall. Whatever it was that lay hidden behind the door was powerful enough to need to be kept buried deep underground at the foot of the tower. Caz sensed the manipulating hands of the old man in every move he was driven to make as he raised the latch.

The door was heavy, a thick slab of seasoned oak that swung silently outwards, presenting the uninitiated with the leering face of a carved and painted giant brandishing a great, iron-bound club as the inner side was revealed. It was not meant to be welcoming. The room beyond was round and unfurnished, save for nine plain wooden chairs arranged in a wide circle at the centre. But that was not what took Caz's attention.

Spellbound, he raised the spear, holding it high above his head, the rune blazing as he paced the evenly heated flagstone floor, gazing in wonder at the vibrant images shining in sharp relief among the stunningly worked friezes covering the walls. It seemed that every story from the Old Norse legends had been brought to life in the concealed chamber at the foot of the tower – yet he knew they were not the source of the power that had inflamed the rune on the blade.

The artist's vision of World Tree dominated the design at the north point of the room, where the image of the tortured God hung impaled on his own spear. Wolves prowled at his feet. Red-eyed ravens hovered over his stricken head. The high-backed chair between the two floor-standing candelabras at the top of the circle had been positioned so that its occupant would be constantly overlooked by the gleaming, sky blue gemstone set into the God's single eye.

The three great roots of the tree extended in either direction around the lower half of the wall space. Baldr, the best of the Host of Asgard, lay imprisoned in Hel's realm, the darkest of the nine worlds of the dead, below the first root. The head of Mimir guarded the well of wisdom beneath the second root, under the watch of the Frost Giants. The three Norns were depicted as crones crouching around the white spring of eternal life at the third root. The diamond-bright eyes of Past, Present and Future glimmered luminescent blue, reflecting the light of the spear.

Where the branches extended upwards, reaching far into the domed ceiling, Caz saw runes picked out in gold. They were easily understood. Both Sir Jonas and Alan had often quoted the words hidden in the inscription:
The God wills, the Goddess nurtures, the Fate-Spinners decide.
Alan obviously knew a lot more than he was prepared to let on.

Directly opposite the tree, the glory of the midsummer sunrise cloaked the white-armed Goddess where she gathered the clouds to spin her golden threads between the stars. Her distaff and spindle were set with gleaming aquamarines and rubies. Stars shone at her brow and shimmered through her red-gold hair. The necklace sculpted at her neck and breast had been set with giant cabochons of polished crystal. Her cloak was clasped in silver studded with amber. Two white cats were harnessed to a small, enclosed wagon at her feet.

The great serpent curled and twisted where the frieze touched the edge of the flagstone floor, snatching at the bait dangled from red-bearded Thor's fishing line. Dwarves laboured at the forges in their mountain halls, while Heimdall blew the Horn of Warning as fire giants and countless monsters, with Loki at their head, swarmed from Naglfar, the horror ship fashioned out of dead men's fingernails. The great wolf howled and looked to Valhall where the God rode out on eight-legged Sleipnir, leading the great host flanked by the Valkyrs on their magnificent grey mares. The ranks of the chosen filed behind them, marching to the wide plain for the final battle where the fate of the God and humankind would be decided.

The heavily stylised images were a spectacular celebration of human vision and skill, and that was all they could ever be. No mortal could capture the light or the immensity of the grandeur and the terror of the reality of World Tree. The gods were caricatures, mere products of meagre knowledge. The Valkyrs were cartoon characters, each of them blonde, beautiful and mounted on pale parodies of the Galdramerar. The warriors were nothing more than stick figures brandishing over-sized axes or spears. Caz thought that Haldor Vidarsson would be grateful that he and his riders wore no shape within the confines of the Shadowed World.

CHAPTER 23

The sound of the old man's heartbeat, echoing like a stone dropped into the dark waters of a deep well, gave him away as he came creeping through the pillared corridor. The light of the spear dimmed and went out. Caz laid the great weapon on the floor beside the high-backed chair and sat down.

‘It's pretty big for an “old cupboard we don't use any more”, don't you think?' he drawled, as Sir Jonas shuffled into the room.

The old man didn't reply. He stepped carefully around the spear as he lit the nine fat yellow candles, each pressed onto an iron spike at the end of a branch on the two wooden candelabras – four fat wicks to kindle on one side of the chair where Caz was sitting, five on the other. He took the opposite seat, in front of the image of the Goddess, before he answered. ‘The explanation was suited to the occasion.'

‘So what's it all about?' Caz demanded. ‘You don't do anything by accident. I was
meant
to see this and you
meant
to come down here, once I had had a chance to take a good look around. What's going on? What's all this for?'

‘This is the Council Chamber where the Guardians of the Runes of the Deathless have gathered on the four cross-quarter days of every year since my grandfather initiated their order more than a hundred years ago.'

Caz lounged in the chair. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stretched out his legs, baiting the old man. ‘The Guardians of the Runes of the Deathless, eh? Don't you think that was a bit premature, considering you've only just got the first one?'

Sir Jonas ignored the derision. ‘The first Guardians agreed on the title in anticipation of the day when the Runes of the Deathless would be won.'

‘So what's it got to do with me?'

‘It has been agreed that I should invite you to join us in Council.'

‘Why?'

‘Because we feel that it would benefit you at this particular time.'

‘It would benefit me!' Caz laughed and shook his head. ‘Since when have you done anything that didn't ultimately benefit yourself more than anyone else?'

The old man kept his face averted, looking at the patterns in the flagstone floor. He remained silent.

Caz took the hint. ‘So what does this benefit involve? Do I have to go through some kind of weird ritual to get it, or what?'

‘No,' Sir Jonas answered cautiously. ‘Only your discretion is counted upon, but then you have already proved yourself in that respect during the past two years.'

‘Why wasn't I invited before?'

‘Primarily, in view of your age. Now that you are approaching your sixteenth birthday, it is considered more appropriate to invite you.'

‘More legal, you mean. So when's the next meeting?'

‘On October 31
^st
.'

‘When Daisy's Mister Charles is supposed to show up?'

‘Yes.'

‘And who else?'

‘The individual identities of the Guardians are known only in Council.'

‘So the only way I'll find out is if I show up too?'

Sir Jonas nodded. ‘In a word, yes.'

‘So what's in it for me? What do I get out of it?'

‘Perhaps that depends upon what you are prepared to put in.'

‘I'd say I had already put in more than my fair share, wouldn't you?'

Again the old man gave no answer.

Caz persisted. ‘Come on! Get to it! What's the real deal?'

‘We can offer you the support and protection of a century-old organisation that has devoted all its energy towards exactly what was first achieved almost two years ago, and we hope will be achieved again.'

‘You couldn't have done it without me.'

‘You couldn't have done it without us,' countered Sir Jonas.

‘True, but your Guardians can't protect me from what goes on in those other worlds. You couldn't.'

‘But we can do everything in our power to provide you with the best possible chance of survival, both in this world and within those other dimensions with which you have become familiar. We have not been idle this past hundred years, as you have already observed to no small degree.'

Caz had no problem with that. ‘You have put together some pretty amazing stuff,' he agreed.

‘And I believe you would also agree that we have bred some rather extraordinary horses,' said Sir Jonas.

‘If it hadn't been for Kyri, I wouldn't have made it back and neither would you.' Caz gestured at the images around the walls. ‘They are nothing at all like the reality, are they? Wherever the spooks took us, it was like we were outside of time and inside the stars, all at the same moment. I thought it was a dream. Now everything about the life we have here seems like the illusion.'

The blue eye narrowed. ‘Well, of course I still have very little recollection of that,' the old man replied huffily. ‘Apparently I had taken a severe axe-blow to the head quite early on, if you remember correctly.'

Caz nodded. ‘Yes, you had, and yet we want to go back. Some part of me just wishes I could ride Kyri far into forever and never see this shadow world again.' He focused his attention once more on the walls. ‘So where are the big three runes supposed to go? Why didn't you leave a space for them when you were doing everything else?'

Unexpectedly Sir Jonas threw his stick across the circle with surprising force and accuracy. Caz caught it in a lightning reflex.

‘Look down on the floor to your left!' the old man commanded. ‘You only need apply the slightest pressure.'

The end of the stick fitted exactly into the shallow recess indicated by the tiny Rune of Tír stamped into the grey stone. To Caz's amazement, the entire circular section in the middle of the floor began to drop away. It divided into two separate halves that slid silently out of sight to allow a second, equal-sized section to rise and lock into its place.

At once, the real need for this deeply buried, secret chamber became astoundingly evident. An outer circle of thirty-two, white marble flagstones enclosed a wide inner ring of gleaming black granite, at the centre of which a misted, sea-blue orb had been placed with exquisite skill to catch every particle of the available light. Set deep into the ink-dark stone, it appeared to glow with an inner fire of its own making. All but two of the smooth, white outer stones had been engraved with runes, embossed with lengths of hammered red gold and arranged according to their traditional order of Ætts. The first of the Runes of the Deathless was the most recently added. The flame-coloured gold gleamed in the candlelight. The two remaining stones completing the circle were blank. Caz's question had been answered. The source of power had been revealed.

He nodded at the old man, his eyes shining. ‘What can I say? Of all the tricks you've got up your sleeve, this has to be the most impressive! It's really amazing!'

‘I'm glad you think so,' said Sir Jonas, gratified.

‘What's that blue stone in the middle?'

‘I believe it is a form of aquamarine. It took my grandmother several years of searching, and at some considerable cost, to locate it. She always professed a particular sensitivity to the stone, more than most. The Guardians consider it to be sacred as representing the eye of the God.'

‘Can I touch it?'

Sir Jonas shook his head. ‘It is a privilege reserved exclusively for the Guardians, and then only when the Master has given them permission to cross the rune circle in order to do so.'

Caz sat forward in the chair, unable to take his eyes off the stone. The urge to lay his hands on its gleaming surface was almost more than he could bear. His fingers twitched. The scar on his hand was tingling. The great rune burned at the head of the weapon at his feet, although the old man appeared to be unaware if it. He wished that he would go back to the study and leave him alone in this incredible place. But he knew it would never happen, not until he had agreed to go along with whatever it would take to be accepted as a Guardian.