The Giants' Dance (12 page)

‘Hoy!' he shouted, and made the lad turn. ‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘Trying to wallop that there goggly.'

When Will shaded his eyes and looked up he saw they were trying to dislodge the gargoyle.

‘It's naught but a carven image!'

‘Nooo! ‘tis a goggly! Look, it moves!'

Will stared at their red faces and began to suspect they had been put under an enchantment. But then the creature actually did move.

‘See, Master! Now then! What kind of a carving is that?'

Will's eyes narrowed. It was a live animal trapped high up in a corner of the wall. One of the ugliest creatures he had ever seen. Its every movement lifted the hairs in Will's flesh, as the sight of a spider did in some. The creature was brown-grey and mottled, batlike yet baby-faced at the same time, and there was something elfin about it. It had wings and a tail and four thin limbs, and was about the size of a three-year-old child, though it was built much slighter and in strange proportions. Whenever it moved the folk below gasped and hooted. And when the bold lad made to pitch another stone up at it Will stayed him with a question.

‘Who found it?'

One of the men spoke up. ‘My brother seen it up there around dawn when we come up from Morton Ashley to check on the snares.'

‘Snares?' Will asked sharply. ‘Shame on you. There's a deal of suffering in snares, you know that.'

‘Well, fetch it down then so's we can kill it!' the man said.

‘Is that what you brought me out here for?' Will demanded.

‘Look!'

The thing moved again, crouched in a corner, then scuttled at speed across a sheer wall, clinging to the vertical surface and the overhang of the parapet with long, clawlike nails. Will saw that something was clamped to its ankle and it trailed a long, rusty chain that seemed to be attached to the masonry of the tower.

Stones were let fly at it and fists shaken.

‘Naaw! Naaaw!' it cried, and a shower of grit flaked down into their eyes from its struggles.

‘Stop that!' Will cried with all the authority he could muster. ‘You must try to calm yourselves!'

‘At night them gogglies fly out from caverns and drink the milk of our animals,' a woman said, hate shining in her eyes. ‘And they steal babies from out their cradles!'

‘And they shuns the light,' another told him. ‘But ‘tis said they can sit out even in the noonday sun and not budge once they've tasted of the flesh of a child!'

‘Nonsense.'

‘'Tis true! That's why they hide out on towers and the like. Pose as gargles in the daytime, they do. Until folk discovers them and drives them away. Pitch a rock at it, Erngar!'

‘I said no throwing!' Will pointed his staff at the man and he dropped the rock. ‘Or I shall not help you.'

A memory stirred as he caught the latest movement. He was reminded of a candle-blackened roof and hideous faces and winged creatures just like this one. What he had at first taken for carvings had clustered high up among the roof beams of the great chapter house of Verlamion, looking down on him with hungry eyes.

‘Goggly child-stealer!' a fat woman shouted up at it, wrathfully shaking her fist.

Just then, Duffred came up on a horse. ‘What's to do here?' he asked.

Once he had dismounted Will drew him aside out of earshot of the others. ‘What is that thing?' he asked shading his eyes.

‘Don't rightly know. But you want to be careful, the folk at Morton Ashley and right down as far as Helmsgrave say these creatures steal newborn babes,' Duffred murmured.

‘So I've discovered.'

The Nadderstone man who had brought Will here joined them, and so did his wife. ‘Gogglies come from a land under the ground.'

‘How do you know that?' Will asked, a sudden anxiety seizing him.

The man looked back challengingly. ‘Every seven years them gogglies must pay a tithe to the infernal king who lives down below. But it's a living tithe. They must give over one of their own young – unless they can find a manchild to offer instead.'

‘That's why they're always prowling for our young ones,' the woman said, picking up a stone.

Duffred said quietly, ‘I don't know if it's the truth, but it's what they believe. They all do. When this chapter house was still lived in, the folk hereabouts would bring their children here to have a mark put on their heads – the Rite of Unction they called it. It was supposed to be a protection against these…things.'

Will folded his arms. ‘And was it paid for?'

‘Aye. A gold piece taken from the village coffer.'

He snorted. ‘Gwydion says the Sightless Ones love gold above all else. And that the Elders of the Fellowship delight most in taking it piecemeal from the needy and the credulous.'

‘But is that not a fair exchange?' Duffred asked. ‘A piece of gold for a charm against evil?'

‘Evil!' Will gave Duffred a hard look. ‘That is a meaningless word, an idea invented by power-hungry men to enslave folk's minds. And how many times must it be said: true magic is never to be bought or sold. Don't you see? The red hands were just squeezing these folk, frightening them into bringing their babes here. Doubtless so they could be registered with a magical mark, one that helps to make recruits of them in later life. Gwydion says the Sightless Ones believe in something very dangerous.'

‘And what's that?'

‘It's called the Great Lie.'

Duffred looked unsure and gave the cloister a thoughtful glance. ‘So you're saying the goggly ain't a child-stealer after all?'

‘I hardly think so. Look at it, Duff. It's terrified!' Will thought of the vent in the cellar under the chapter house and smelled again the strange air that had issued from below.

As he walked towards the tower, one of the skin-like wings flapped pathetically and he knew the creature was in pain.

‘I'm going up there,' he said, rolling up his sleeves.

‘You can't do that!'

‘Why not?'

‘It's said they got a poison bite on them!'

‘I'll bet that's a lot of nonsense too!'

Inside the tower a few floorboards were still clinging to
the beams and three broken and rotting staircases led precariously from one level to the next. Will had to be helped up to the first floor, but then he climbed alone, walking with arms outstretched along the beams, testing his footing with care as he went. Birds had nested here and the rain of several winters had made the walls mossy. When he reached the top he saw marks that showed how the roof of the tower had been deliberately broken with axes and hammers. He looked down from what seemed now to be a dizzying height, and began to edge out along the bare parapet. At last he came to the place where the iron chain was wedged tight in a crevice of the stonework. One of the creature's ankles was shut in an iron trap, and the ring on the chain that dangled from the trap was fixed through a staple in the masonry.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried not to look down. The sooner he did what he had come to do the better it would be. But when the creature found that he had come close to it, it began to screech. It had big eyes, a broad muzzle and a wide mouth with many needlelike teeth. Its grey fur was threadbare, and its lips were bloodied, which gave it an even more monstrous appearance.

‘Naaw! Naaaw!' it cried, and tried again to escape, but it could not bite through the chain, nor was it strong enough to pull the ring free, no matter how it tugged.

‘Stop flapping, you foolish beast. There, now,' he murmured, trying to gentle it. ‘Can't you see you're only hurting yourself?'

‘Naaw! Naaaw!' the thing cried back.

Balancing on top of the parapet was difficult. The masons who had built the tower had made castellations on top, perhaps so that princely armies marching by would believe it was part of a great fortification and so leave it alone. Will sat astride the battlement and inched along the wall. His left leg overhung a sheer drop every bit as far down as the
ground beneath the curfew tower at Verlamion. When he came to the iron ring he found it was made fast, and was too strong to break.

He thought about using a spell, but he had no knowledge of the creature's true name, nor could he say how magic would work upon it. There's no alternative but to speak calmly to it, he thought, and to try, bit by bit, to tempt it in.

‘Naaaw!' it screamed when he put his hand on the chain.

There was no trust in the fragile creature. It pulled against his efforts, obstinately hurting itself, and he worried that he might break its leg if he were to pull too hard. It was already in pain, for the rusty teeth of the trap had bitten deep.

‘How long have you been here?' he asked, leaning out as far as he could. ‘You poor little thing. Are you hungry? I wish I'd brought a sausage or two for you. That might have tempted you down, eh? And by the looks of you you're parched too. I've never seen such a depth of mistrust in any beast. Where did you learn that? Now, if I can only reach out and…'

But when he stretched out his hand towards the trap the creature flapped in a renewed frenzy. It flew at him, and scratched him with its slender claws.

‘Steady…I'm not going to hurt you,' he muttered, drawing away.

His outstretched fingers trembled as he tried to reach the trap, and perhaps turn it over a little to see how the mechanism worked and how the iron teeth might be parted, but the creature took fright once more. Terror flashed in its eyes. It hissed and lunged, and then sank its teeth into his hand.

A sharp pain shot through him. He stifled a yell, but then the creature pulled back, jerking furiously on the chain in another vain effort to pull itself free. Its claws
began to scrabble horribly against the stone, and then it flattened itself on the wall. It shut its eyes and made a horrible face, freezing in an outstretched pose in a last senseless effort to deceive the hunter by playing the gargoyle.

‘Come on! Let's be sensible now,' Will said. ‘We both know you're not a stone carving.'

He hung on to the chain even though he felt the fingers of his other hand sliding. Fear of falling froze him, put a rod of steel in his arm. He summoned the power to ignore pain and the strength of three men to slowly drag himself back. His braids brushed his cheek, and as he came upright he found he was shaking.

‘I'm only here to help you, you stupid creature,' he said. There was blood on his fingers where the ingrate had bitten him. Drops of blood pooled at the wound and began to run in red lines down his arm as he watched. Blood dripped from his elbow into the void below.

He was dimly aware of upturned faces as Duffred and the other folk watched him. He hoped Duffred's claim about a poison bite was empty.

‘Those folks down there think I'm either very brave,' he told the frozen creature, ‘or very foolish. I'm not sure myself which it is. What do you think?'

But the beast was not listening.

‘Magician, heal thyself!' he said, and laughed at the irony. So much healing had come from his hands just lately, yet he could do nothing for himself.

‘That's how magic works, I'm afraid,' he said, looking hard at the beast. Then he realized that nothing his magic could do was likely to be worse than the injuries he would end up with by fighting the creature's stubbornness headon.

There was nothing for it but to use a spell of great magic. He resettled himself on the wall like a man astride a horse.
He put his hands together and summoned up his inner calm. After all the practice of yesterday a magical state of mind came to him easily and he felt the tingling in his skin begin to rise in waves. Then he fixed his attention on the chain.

He began to blow on it. Hot breath, hotter as it left his lips, hotter still as it played on the iron chain link. Soon the rusted iron began to glow a deep cherry red. The red intensified until it was glowing yellow and then white. Will put two fingers through the link and opened it easily.

When magic snaps, best beware the afterclap!

Will recalled the rede only just in time as the effort of the spell broke back against him. It was like a fall from a great height. Darkness closed in on him very suddenly. For a moment he was in a faint, then his thoughts seemed to move outside his head, and he was looking down at an unconscious fool who sat astride a battlement with two pieces of chain clasped in unfeeling hands.

But as the chain swung free the creature's eyes opened. It sensed freedom and came to life, scuttling first halfway across the wall. Then it launched itself into the air.

It fell for a moment in a great flat-bellied curve, weighed down by the trap and chain that dangled from its leg. But the rush of air under its wings bore it upward, and it flapped in a desperate arc over the trees and disappeared.

Will saw everything haloed in blue light. He battled to bring his mind once more into focus. Stupidly he looked at the patterns of the ground far below but could make no sense of them. But then he felt a trickle of spittle run wetly from the side of his mouth. He felt his teeth grating on the stone and a great sickness welled up in his belly.

A moment passed before he understood his precariousness. Another moment before he began to wonder just
how long he had been slumped on the wall. He heard Duffred calling to him. Then the life started to flow back into his limbs again, and he breathed a deep draught of air that made him realize just how close a fool had come to killing himself.

B
right sunshine was shafting through an open window and sparrows were chasing one another noisily through the eaves when Will came to again. He found himself stiff in every joint, and his left hand was tied up tightly in a cloth strip.

Bolt began to bark and came up to him with a wagging tail when he tried to turn over. Then Duffred appeared and said, ‘How are you feeling this fine morning? – what's left of it, anyway.'

‘Sore.' He smiled. ‘And hungry.'

‘Soon fix that. Does bacon and eggs sound good enough?'

‘Hmmm.' He glanced up at the window. ‘What about the folk outside?'

‘Oh, they've all gone.'

‘But I can hear voices.'

‘Market day. And a busy one too. I should lay low if I was you, in case folk start to put the word out you've come back again.'

He gave Duffred a nod of agreement. ‘Good idea.'

Will replaited his braids, dressed and slipped down to the snug. Dimmet appeared from one of the pantries. He
planted his hands on his hips when he saw Will was awake and laughed his great laugh. ‘Oh, so you've come back to us, have you? You was as mad as a March hare when we put you to bed. Rattling on about this and that.' He turned to Duffred. ‘How is he now?'

‘Says he's hungry.'

Duffred raised his eyebrows. ‘And how's the hand?'

Will flexed it testingly. ‘Stiff. And I still feel tired, despite sleeping a full night on your softest mattress.'

‘Two nights and the day in between if you really want to know. We was getting a mite concerned about you.'

Will was astonished. ‘
That
long?'

‘I suppose doing magic takes it out of a body.' Dimmet's voice hardened. ‘Duffred here says them folks from Morton Ashley weren't best pleased you let their goggly get away, mind.'

‘It didn't get away. I let it go.'

Dimmet blinked. ‘What? A-purpose?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, then. No wonder they was upset with you. Gogglies ain't the easiest of things to catch ahold of by all accounts.'

‘I thought I'd been called there to save a life. But they'd caught the creature in an iron snare. They wanted me to kill it for them. What do they think I am?'

Dimmet put a pewter platter down in front of him and withdrew. Will make short work of the breakfast, then he went back upstairs, having remembered the red fish that was still in his pouch. He took it out. A stunning idea had come to him.

Maybe, just maybe, it
was
his own green fish. Maybe something or someone had stolen it away from Nether Norton, and had taken it to Little Slaughter where it had been altered by the heat of the fireball.

He looked at it with new eyes. If it had been altered, then it was a change for the worse. There was something
secretive about it now, something that did not sit very comfortably with his magical sense. Even so, he felt prompted to put it on a thread and wear it inside his shirt, just as he had before. But after a while sitting alone he began to feel so restless that he decided to go out.

He tied a bundle to his staff, stuck his hazel wand in his belt and put up the hood of his cloak. Then he crept downstairs again and stepped out by the back way.

He felt drained, like a man who wakes in the thin hours of the night and cannot get back to sleep. The wound in his hand had begun to throb. He knew he should rest, but what he wanted most was to get away from Eiton and its throngs of people for the rest of the day. He needed to plant his feet in the good earth, drink his fill of pure spring water and feast on fresh air. He would walk the lign, and soon he would feel more like his old self again. The sun would burn the tiredness out of him, and he might even be able to think a few things through at last.

He slipped back into the Plough's yard unnoticed a little after sunset. He was tired and displeased with what now seemed to have been a fruitless and ill-spent day. The night was clear and warm. Many stars were twinkling overhead, but he had no time for them. He came in past the stables, and felt the presence of a big animal shifting its weight from foot to foot. His magical sense flared vividly, and he got the impression that the beast in the stall was thirsty, but he was too tired to pull the thought fully up into his conscious mind or to do anything practical about it.

The inn was warm and welcoming and busy with village folk making merry, but it seemed to Will both close and stuffy. There was a man sawing on a fiddle and another beating on a tabor. Duffred was washing a bucket of greasy wooden spoons over by the ale taps, and he hailed Will.

‘It's too busy in there,' Will said, preparing to slip upstairs.

‘My old dad says that “too” and “busy” are words that never go well together in an innkeeper's hearing. Mind you, after all the tumults of this week I confess I'd be happier if it was a little quieter just now. Where've you been all the day?'

‘I…think it's best if I make myself scarce.' He glanced at the many customers, disliking their raucous laughter and the merry singing that had begun.

Duffred looked up and handed him a full tankard. ‘Here. This'll wet your whistle. You get yourself down the far corner. Nobody much'll bother you down there.'

He took the cider. ‘Thank you. I don't think I'll need to whet my appetite though. I'm ravenous.'

He watched Duffred break off half a loaf and then ladle out a bowl of pauper's pea soup for him. Will carried it off down the passageway and found the quietest corner, but no sooner had he broken bread than a bent-backed old man shambled over. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, and there was a dusting of sparkles about his hair and upon the wool of his mantle, as if he had just come through fine rain.

‘Hey-ho, Master!' the old man said in a jocular voice, and sat himself down.

Will resettled himself. ‘How do,' he said more than a little gruffly and fearing that more was about to be asked of him. The old man edged his stool closer to the table and leaned forward and Will felt a pair of faded eyes boring into him as he ate.

He looked up at last and saw the old man nod at him. ‘Looks right tasty, does that, Master.'

‘I'm nobody's master.' He frowned. There was something about the old man's appearance that made Will feel mightily uneasy. He wished the singers would quieten down. ‘I dare say Duffred'll give you a splash of good pauper's soup and the rest of this loaf if you ask him.'

‘Oh, I ain't much hungry for soup.'

‘That's all right then,' Will said with his mouth full.

‘But see, I heard there was a crow visiting hereabouts.'

Will stopped chewing and put his hunk of bread down. ‘Crow' was the word some used to mean a wizard. ‘I wouldn't know about that.'

‘And I heard there was a lot of healing going on here. A regular hero of a healer at work they told me – a friend of the crow's, a young feller not unlike yourself.'

‘I'm no hero,' Will said lightly, and started eating again.

‘Maybe you're not,' the old man said, but his eyes strayed to Will's staff, and then to a meat knife that was on the uncleared table, and finally back to Will's face. ‘But what if I said I'd been looking for
you
?'

Will saw the old man's eyes fasten upon his own. His hand went unconsciously to the place where the red fish was concealed. ‘Looking for me, you say?'

The old man smiled a yellow smile. ‘Oh, I've known about you for a very long time, Willand. As a matter of fact, we've met before.'

The singing stopped and the sudden silence was blemished by the sounds of a big horse snorting and big hooves clopping out in the yard. Will looked to the tiny window, then to the door and irresistibly back to the old man. ‘Who are you?' he said, his blood running cold. ‘How do you know me?'

‘You know very well, I think.' The old man's arm moved as fast as lightning. He suddenly plucked out the hazel wand that Will had in his belt. ‘I see you've a talent!'

As the old man snapped the wand in two a surge of fear ran through Will's belly. He found he could not look away from the other's binding stare. Not even towards the knife that was within easy reach on the table top.

‘Who are you?' Will demanded.

‘One who wishes to know if you are a born fool who has learned nothing since.' Suddenly the old man's voice
was gone and another that was deeper and wholly compelling filled the air.

Will's mind whirled in terror. His hand moved towards the knife, knocking his soup bowl from the table. But the bowl and its contents froze in mid air and never reached the floor. Nor would his hand move further towards the knife no matter how hard he tried to make it.

‘Who are you?' he asked for the third time, though he had already decided he knew the answer. He heard his voice rise in panic, betraying him as complete powerlessness overtook him. He tried to get to his feet but he could not move. You fool! his mind screamed. You broke a promise and look what it's brought you to!

‘You know who I am. And I command you – speak my name if you dare!'

A blade of ice slipped into Will's heart. All the hairs on his head stood up, and against his will his lips formed the word, ‘Maskull!'

No sooner was the word spoken than the face of the old man began to change. It shimmered like ripples on a pond. Will watched motionless as a new face began to form. Nor did much relief come to him when the face that appeared was Gwydion's.

‘Easy now, Will. There is no danger. Fortunately you are with a friend.'

But Will still could not speak. He blinked and looked again, still unsure if the apparition was real. Then the shock that gripped him began slowly to ebb away. The soup bowl clattered to the floor, splashing his feet.

Anger overtook him.

‘You scared me half to death!' he cried, and sprang to his feet.

‘I am sorry to have frightened you, Willand, but the lesson was an essential one. I told you to remain here but
you did not remain here. I told you to lie low, but you did not lie low.'

‘I only did what I had to!'

‘Is that what you call it?'

‘What was I supposed to do? It all seemed like the right thing to do at the time.'

But the wizard's grey eyes were on him, relentlessly accusing and shaming him. ‘Listen to me, Willand. You are not taking the task that lies before you seriously enough. In future you must be more guarded. You must make an effort to recognize and pierce magical disguises. You act as if you have forgotten the dangers that you face.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘But it's not my way to mistrust everyone I meet.'

‘That must become second nature to you.'

‘No!' Will shook his head. ‘That will never be. I can't live like that, Gwydion.'

‘Then you will not live long!'

‘At least I'll stay myself.'

‘Fool. If that really had been Maskull, you would have become his unwilling slave, and our world would have been lost!'

The wizard sat back and allowed Will's anger to fully subside, then he said in a more composed voice, ‘Too much depends on you. You must listen more closely to your inner warnings.'

‘What inner warnings?' he asked, still shaking. ‘If I'd felt anything then I would have listened to it.'

‘Is that the truth?'

‘Yes!'

But when Will looked inside himself he saw that a part of him
had
noted the spangling that had covered the hair and shoulders of the old man. It had made him think of fine rain, but how could it have been rain when the sky outside had not a cloud in sight? And, to add to that, he
had ignored the sounds of Bessie moving about in the stable yard. He had selfishly ignored the horse's thirst. If he had been more alert – or perhaps if he had been a little kinder – he would have noticed Bessie and straight away he would have been warned of Gwydion's return.

He said, chastened, ‘I was wrong to disobey you. But what am I to do when I have the power to cure ailments and ailments come to me to be cured? I didn't plan to spread the word of my being here, it just happened.'

Gwydion muttered and Will's stomach turned over as he watched the pea soup slowly return to the bowl and the bowl settle itself back on the table. ‘You must learn to understand a very basic rule, Willand. The Sightless Ones say that life presents endless choices between good and evil. They are wrong. In their terms, life's endless choices are all about choosing between two “evils” or comparing two “goods”. Now weigh the many small mercies you have given to the local people against the vastly greater mercy that you alone can give to the world. Keep a sense of proportion. Be mindful of your true duty.'

‘You speak as if I was pursuing gratitude, or fame, or that I did it for gain.'

The wizard put a hand on Will's shoulder. ‘I know that your motives were not ignoble or unfitting. Nor is it my wish to lay blame on you. I am concerned for your safety. Now let me see that hand.'

Will unwrapped the strip of linen from his hand and the wizard looked at the angry redness of the wound.

‘Teeth,' Gwydion said.

Will told him what had passed. The wizard spoke healing words and treated the wound with a kind touch and a pinch of aromatic powder whose sting made Will flinch.

‘It wasn't the prettiest or best-tempered of beasts I've ever met with,' he said. ‘But it seemed to me more pitiful than malicious.'

‘It seems that your kindness may have rebounded on you, Willand.'

‘That's an odd sort of remark to come from you. Did you not once tell me that the Rede of Friendship lies at the very heart of magic? And is there not a common rede that says: “One good turn deserveth another”?'

‘In the natural world, but perhaps not so when matters have been twisted into their opposites by sorcery.' Gwydion slapped his hand hard then held it tight.