Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (53 page)

    I wiped my palms on my trousers where they were greasy with slime and sweat. My spine was prickling and my head ached with the wrongness of it. I would try and make this quick. The less time I had to spend near the thing, the better.

    Raffmir descended the ladder and produced a lace handkerchief to wipe the slime from his hands and from the edges of his sleeves. He was as fastidious as a cat and the expression on his face as his white hanky took on the green-brown stain was almost worth enduring the trial for. Solandre stood at the top of the ladder. I knew it was petty but I looked forward to her getting her hands dirty. Instead, she stepped lightly off the gantry and floated gently to the ground, her skirts billowing around her legs. Another benefit, I supposed, of not being entirely anchored to reality.

    Disappointed, I turned back to the hammer.

    I could not escape the sense that it was somehow alive, brooding darkly, waiting for its opportunity to hurt me. It would not have long to wait.

    Ben had secured a sling around it with some blue nylon rope. I blessed him, as it would mean I could descend into the river without having to hold the hammer at the same time.

    Raffmir objected. "You cannot have the rope. You must carry the hammer across yourself," he asserted. Blackbird corrected him. "Actually you said it must be taken by he who stands trial from one side to the other. You did not specify the means by which it should be carried."

    He hesitated, and then allowed that it was what he'd said. He didn't look happy about it, though. "Very well, but he may not throw it or pass it across. He must take it across the river himself. "
    "Agreed," I confirmed.

    I had never liked water. Not since the day I had almost drowned. I claimed I'd never had the time to learn to swim, but the truth was that I could always think of something else to do rather than that. With the hammer, though, swimming was not going to be an option. It would weigh me down like an anchor.

    Ben had bound the rope around the head and down around the end of the handle forming a sling of sorts. It looked well-tied and secure.

    "Which way up do you want it?" Blackbird must have been steeling herself because she looked relaxed as she went over to it. Whether this show was for my benefit or theirs I could not say.

    "Put the head at the bottom. That way it will be easier to manoeuvre. "
    "Just don't touch it by mistake, OK?"

    The worst part was picking up the hammer. Blackbird helped me, even though it must have made her flesh crawl to do it. She slipped the nylon rope over my head and shoulder so the hammer was slung across my back. It made my bones ache, my nerves jangle and my muscles cramp and twitch, but I would bear it. I was determined to see this through.

    My stomach knotted and twisted and I comforted myself that it was not the thought of the river turning my guts, but the proximity of the hammer. As I stood, finally prepared, Blackbird brushed my hair back from my face in a gesture I understood. It was enough to raise the ghost of a smile, though in truth I was feeling sick from being so close to the hammer. There was nothing left to say. Looking down at the flow, I was sure that if I simply tried to cross the stream then I would be swept away. The current had risen while we were there, fuelled by the rain from the world above, and the whole width of it would be treacherous. For a moment my mind filled with the thought of it invading my nostrils, choking my mouth, slipping dark and cold into my lungs until it starved me of oxygen, leaving me scrabbling for air. "Ready?" Blackbird's voice broke into my thoughts. I nodded once, telling myself it would be OK. "May fortune smile upon you."

    Fortune was all well and good, but I was not intending to leave this to chance. I smiled back at her, not daring to linger or I would give myself away.

    I had come up with a plan.

    I could try and explain to her, but it was better that she didn't know. I wasn't quite sure whether what I intended was within the strict laws of the trial, but it would meet the conditions that Raffmir had set out and I was relying on his sense of honour to hold back his sister when, and if, I endured. I was not without hope, but I would keep my secret to myself.

    If my plan worked then I would carry the hammer from one side of the river to the other. However, it was important it looked right, otherwise there might be room for them to contest the validity of the ordeal. I had to make this look good.

    Crossing the stream physically was not part of the plan. Once I was under the surface and out of sight, I would put my hand on the sixty-first nail which was tucked into my pocket and use that to create a path through the void to the other side. As long as I could stay focused, the slight time delay would give the illusion that I had struggled across and then I could emerge victorious with the hammer.

    They would have to allow it. As Blackbird had said, they had not specified the means or the manner of my crossing the river, only that I must carry it across myself. I was tempted to do it from the bank. He hadn't said I had to use the rungs or even enter the water, but I did not want to leave room for doubt. I would suffer the brief torment that carrying the hammer down into the water would inflict to make sure there was no room for them to wriggle out of their promise.

    I sat down on the cold bank, hanging my legs down over the edge. The damp seeped into the cloth of my trousers. No matter. I would be wetter and colder shortly.

    Being careful to mind the hammer I leaned back and rolled over so I could drop my legs over the edge and seek with my foot for a toe-hold. There was no handhold at the top and I guessed the rungs had only ever been intended for emergency. My hands were aching where I held the wooden shaft of the hammer so it would not slide over the edge and drag me backwards into the water.

    After a moment my toe found what I thought was a rung. I tested my weight on it and it held. Below it was another. I scraped backwards slowly, easing myself over the edge. I let the sling take the weight of the hammer and let it swing free behind me. It pulled into my shoulder and banged back against my leg, momentarily numbing my thigh muscle.

    I eased back and down, and when my head was level with the bank, Raffmir said, "Farewell, little brother." The look of smug satisfaction on Solandre's face made me even more determined to make my plan work. I stepped down again and felt the first touch of water around my feet. The damp bricks had been chilled, but this was icy. I lowered myself further. The current tugged at my ankles and calves. It got harder to find the footholds with the water pulling at my trousers. I told myself it would not be for long. Twisting around, I looked across the gap of twenty or thirty feet to the other bank, the line of rungs descended there into the water. I fixed in my mind the clear picture of the other wall so I would be able to find it through the void. The water came up to my waist now, chilling the whole lower part of my body. The hammer swung slightly as the head was buffeted by the current. Water soaked into the bottom of my shirt. I took another step down, and another, holding tightly to the rungs to keep from being swept from the wall. At chest height in the water, I lowered myself again, wondering how deep it was and how much further down I could descend. The water swirled against me, dark and oily. It smelled of rain-stormed streets and flushed gutters. Pieces of litter were swept by along with darker, less identifiable flotsam. I was just a head above water. It was now or never.

    I looked up one last time, hoping to catch Blackbird's eye. Instead Solandre's face leaned over, watching me. I did the only thing I could think of with both hands clinging to the rungs. I stuck my tongue out at her. The expression of outrage on her face as she turned away to tell Raffmir was worth the moment of bravado. He would see the joke and it meant she would miss the moment when I slipped below the surface. I was glad of that.

    I filled my lungs with air and descended two rungs, making sure I was well below the surface where they could not see what I was doing. The freezing water swirled and tugged around me and I began shivering almost immediately. Fine bubbles steamed from my mouth as my body immediately started to shake with the cold.

    Being careful to avoid accidental contact with the head of the hammer, I released one hand from the rung. The current swung me sideways as I let go and the water pressed me at an awkward angle. My wrist scraped against the roughness of the bricks. I found my pocket and fumbled with rapidly numbing fingers for the nail. Weed slipped across my face. At least I hoped it was weed.

    My fingers wormed their way inside the sodden pocket and my hand found the metal of the nail. I wrapped my hand around it, feeling the answering echo of the void within it, sensing it fall into blackness in my hand.

    Already running short of oxygen, I focused on the nail and formed a link with the core of darkness within me. The universe parted for me and the many overlapping and intertwining worlds were there, but there was something different, something wrong. There was a weight, an anchor holding me to the world I was in. The iron of the hammer would not come through. I twisted and pulled in the water, pulling the hammer around in front of me. I wrenched at the void and it answered, distorting space around me. But the hammer stayed. It was solidity where everything else was fluid. It would not move.

    I had a choice. I could try to cross without the hammer, or stay with it and drown. My chest ached with the need to draw breath and I hadn't even started to cross. Without the hammer, I knew there would be no point to any of it. With my lungs already bursting from lack of oxygen, I shoved the nail down into the pocket and pulled the hammer around in front of me, letting it drag me down to the bottom. I crawled away from the wall along the bottom, using the hammer to stop me being swept downstream.

    The current was stronger away from the wall and swirled about me, tugging at my clothes. I opened my eyes briefly, trying to get some sense of distance. It was pitch black. I could feel the pull on the sling as the hammer swung underneath me bumping along the bottom. The river bottom was littered with junk. Objects embedded in the silt, sharp and blunt, scraped my hands and knees. With my numb fingers I clawed my way along, pulling myself forward. I reasoned that as long as I kept the force of the current to my left I would be heading in the right direction, though how I would find the rungs at the far side, I had no idea.

    My lungs burned and I ached to take a breath, but I knew that was death. Spots swam before my eyes and I began to feel light-headed. Bubbles of precious air escaped from my nose and ran up my face, wriggling like worms.

    I hauled myself along, scrabbling at embedded fragments of rusted metal and slithery weed with both hands. The hammer caught on some unseen snag and I wrenched it free. How much further could it be? The strength in my arms deserted me and cold panic pooled in my gut. I hated water. Why had I agreed to do this? The current twisted and pulled, tugging me around. It was a fight not to get swept sideways. I needed to breathe. I kicked upwards with futile twists trying to reach the surface but the hammer stuck resolutely to the bottom. My vision blurred, filling my closed eyes with warm tears.

    I tugged myself along. My head swam with lack of oxygen. I couldn't find the way. I was lost. I coughed and the deathly cold water flooded my mouth and nose. I retched at the foul taste of it, the spasm pulling water into my lungs. I kicked listlessly for the far bank, feeling consciousness began to slip from my grasp.

    I did the only thing I could think of. I shoved my hand in my pocket, grasped the nail and
linked
. The world slid apart and I crawled into the edge of the parting, still tethered to the hammer and unable to enter fully, but grateful for the moment of respite. The void held neither air nor water. I drifted in it like the weed in the current, coughing and retching, my mouth filling with sour bile. My vision blurred, unable to focus on the non-space surrounding me. The sounds of voices echoed distantly around me.

    "How long do you wish us to wait?" It was Raffmir's voice, drifting past me like the flotsam in the water. "Not yet," Blackbird said, her voice cold and hollow. "How long?" he repeated. "Just wait."

    I released the nail and kicked back into the water. The hunger for air returned, my oxygen starved muscles screaming with cramp and fatigue. I pushed myself backwards along the bottom using my heels for traction. I got a few feet before I had to grab for the nail again. This time the void spun around me. My oxygenstarved brain whirled the fractured worlds in kaleidoscopic dizziness.

    I could hear Solandre giggling to herself. That bitch was barking and her brother knew it.

    Within me, I could feel fingers of the void spreading into me, the cold echoing that of the water. I had not called it but it had come. My hold on it was slipping. I had a brief flash of Blackbird, standing on the bank looking into the dark roiling water. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her. She held herself stiff and inert, Raffmir waiting at her shoulder. Then blackness clouded my vision and pulled me away with lazy strength. It whorled and turned, responding to some unseen current, fed by an unknown source. My mind drifted, unable to face the water again. The void swirled within me, echoing the water. It sent an exploring tendril out and upward, coiling around my heart and then, tenderly, pricked it.

    Pain exploded in my chest. I wrenched myself back into the world, fleeing in panic from the acid touch. The water gushed into my mouth and I coughed, desperately trying not to breathe in. I wrenched and grasped at anything to draw me from that dark embrace. The black coils stayed with me, sliding inside my arms, feeding from the burning ache in my cramped muscles, tasting the pain.

    My hand punched into something solid, sending a jolt up my arm, further numbing my senses. I tried to scramble past but something was blocking my path. In a moment of clarity I realised it was the far bank. I was there. The prospect of air had me skidding my hands across the wall while my chest felt like it would burst apart. My numb fingers skittered across the broken bricks searching for a handhold. A vertical edge found me a metal rung and I hauled myself up while I choked and coughed, inhaling water and slime, my vision swimming with spots and strange lights until finally I erupted out into air.