The Spook's Nightmare (25 page)

I leaned my staff against the wall and eased my chain onto my left wrist, ready for throwing. Then, with the other hand, I opened the door very slowly. The room was in darkness, but the torch outside lit the bed, and I could see Lizzie lying there. She was flat on her
back on top of the bedclothes, wearing the purple gown.

I moved cautiously towards her.

But the moment I stepped inside I realized my mistake …

It wasn’t Lizzie lying on the bed after all. It was her empty gown!

My limbs felt like lead. It hadn’t been my instincts at all. I’d been lured into a trap. Some spell of compulsion had drawn me to the room. I sank to my knees. What was it – something like a bone-yard? I was finding it difficult to breathe, my body growing heavier by the second. I seemed to be melting right through the floor. As I lost consciousness, I felt myself being lifted up and carried down, down, down …

I heard a groan nearby and opened my eyes. I was lying on my side on damp flags.

There were chains bound tightly around my legs and fastened to an iron ring set into the stone wall. I sat up slowly and manoeuvred myself until my back was
resting against the wall. I felt stiff and my head ached. I looked around. I was in a cell that was much larger than the one Lord Barrule had put me in, though it had the same three stone walls and one of earth. There was a torch high up on each of the walls to my right and left, flickering in the chill draught that came from the round hole in the earth wall directly ahead. It was another of the buggane’s tunnels – I realized I was down in the dungeons again.

Where was Alice? I wondered. Had she been taken prisoner too? Had Lizzie found her in the shaman’s study? Or had she been more interested in capturing me?

To my left sat another prisoner, also shackled to the wall; but his head was bowed forward, chin touching his chest, so I couldn’t make out his face – though it was definitely a man, not Alice. Then I realized that there was another figure beyond him, and at the sight of him I gasped in horror, the bile rising up into my throat. I choked, struggling not to be sick. It was a dead yeoman, lying in a pool of his own blood. One of his
arms and both legs were missing, his face a ruin; the buggane had been eating him.

I squeezed my eyes tight shut, my whole body trembling. I took deep, slow breaths and tried to calm down.

I glanced to my right and saw that there was someone else chained directly under the torch. I immediately recognized the milky eyes; the two short horns protruding from the thatch of dark hair. It was Horn, the abhuman. When he sensed me looking at him, he growled deep in his throat. He sounded like a wild animal. Despite those blind eyes, I remembered, he somehow had the power to see.

I tried to speak, but my throat was parched and the words only came out at the second attempt. ‘I’m not your enemy,’ I croaked. ‘You’re wasting your time threatening me.’

‘You’d kill me or bind me if you got the chance!’ the deep, feral voice accused.

‘Look, we’re both in the same boat here,’ I said.

Horn let out a deep moan. ‘I thought I’d live
my days serving Lord Barrule. He was a good master.’

‘Was he?’ I asked. ‘He killed your mother, didn’t he? That’s what I was told.’

‘My mother? My mother!’ Horn spat on the earthen floor. ‘She was a mother in blood and name only. She treated me cruelly and gave me pain beyond endurance. But I hate the Fiend even more than her, for it was he who fathered me; he who made me walk this world marked as a beast for all to see! Lord Barrule was the only person who’s ever showed me any kindness.’

Kindness? I remembered how Barrule’s guards had controlled him with the lengths of silver chain through each ear. That hardly seemed like kindness, but there was nothing to be gained from enraging the creature further.

‘I suppose the witch now controls the buggane?’ I asked.

I saw his head nod, the sharp horns glinting in the torchlight. ‘I fought with all my strength, but to no avail. She rules the buggane but struggles to control the animas in the cavern. She doesn’t fully understand
my master’s ways. It is not her kind of dark magic.’

‘Who’s this, do you know?’ I asked, nodding to where the other prisoner was slumped.

‘Commander Stanton. He was cruel. My master listened to him, not me, and allowed him to bore the holes in my ears for the silver chains. Said it was the only way he could control me. Ask me, he’s got what he deserves. His mind has gone: he’s empty – the buggane has drained his animus. Soon it will come for his flesh and blood. After that it will be my turn …’

Commander Stanton! He had paid the price for his opposition to Lizzie.

My thoughts turned to Alice once more. She had done well to deprive Lizzie of the shaman’s notebook – it might have made all the difference. I didn’t know exactly what Alice hoped to achieve, but she’d once made a pact with the Bane, an even more powerful daemon than the buggane. It had almost led to her destruction, but she had managed to control it for a while. With the help of the shaman’s notebooks and the grimoires, maybe she could do the same here?

I felt weak with hunger and thirst, but worse than all that was a growing terror within me that I struggled to control. If Alice didn’t help me, I was soon going to have my life force sucked out of me. At least then, I thought gloomily, I wouldn’t be here to see Lizzie’s blades when she took my thumb-bones. It was a terrible thing to have to depend for my survival on Alice being involved with dark power like this, but for a moment it gave me some hope. Then I remembered that Alice might have been captured too …

My arms weren’t bound and I was able to check my pockets, which I found still filled with salt and iron; even my silver chain hadn’t been taken. It might be that Bony Lizzie couldn’t bear to touch it. Or maybe now, supremely confident of her power, she didn’t care. My special key was there too. It would open almost any lock, but when I tried my shackles, I couldn’t even get it in the keyhole. My sudden flare of hope was extinguished.

At least an hour passed while I worked through all the possibilities – all the things that might give me
some hope of escape or of being rescued. Finally I thought about the Spook. Eventually he’d wake up and maybe work out what had happened. But he’d been powerless against Lizzie. The truth was, I had more faith in Alice.

From time to time Stanton gave a groan as if in pain, but it was just his body crying out, a reflex action; his mind was long gone, his flesh and bones now just an empty shell. Perhaps his soul had also fled.

Suddenly I heard a new sound. A sound that sent fear running down my spine. Someone or something was moving down the earth tunnel towards our cell.

I trembled as soil cascaded down onto the flags. Then the huge hairy head of the buggane emerged. Its large close-set eyes peered at each of us in turn and its wet snout sniffed the air before it pulled its bulk down into the cell. But it was not alone. Someone else crawled out of the tunnel behind it, a bedraggled figure with dirty clothes and mud-caked hair. It was a woman and she looked a sorry sight. It was only when she got to her feet and I saw the pointy shoes and wild glaring
eyes that I recognized Bony Lizzie. Her tiara was still in place but almost invisible under the coating of dirt on her hair.

The witch ignored me and went over to look at Daniel Stanton. She knelt before him and I saw the knife in her hand. I averted my gaze as she began to cut away his thumb-bones. The commander cried out as if in agony, and I had to remind myself that it was just the reaction of his body; that his mind was no longer there to feel the pain.

Then Lizzie came across and crouched down to face me. She smiled, her hands covered in blood, still gripping the knife, hard eyes filled with malice. ‘It’s your turn next, boy. Right now I need all the help I can get. The bones of a seven times seven could make all the difference.’

I had to think fast. ‘I thought you wanted to be a queen,’ I said, trying to distract her, easing my hands into my pockets to grab some salt and iron. ‘I thought you wanted to rule this island. What’s happened to you?’

At that, Lizzie appeared bewildered, and an expression of pain and loss flickered across her face. Suddenly I could see Alice in her; the girl that the witch had once been. Then her face twisted into a sneer, and she leaned nearer so that her foul breath enveloped me.

‘There’s power here, boy, power beyond my wildest dreams; power that could give me the whole world if I wanted it. But first things first. In order to rule above, I need to control what’s in the cavern. It’ll take time, but it’ll be well worth it. And your bones are going to help …’

F
or a moment I thought Lizzie intended to cut away my bones there and then, and my arms tensed, ready to envelop her in a cloud of salt and iron. But instead she returned the blade to the sheath on her belt and rose to her feet.

‘I’ll let the buggane take what it wants first,’ the witch said, turning and heading towards the tunnel again.

I relaxed, breathing out slowly. Even with the salt and iron I’d still have been chained; I’d still have been at the mercy of the buggane. The witch would have recovered all too soon.

Lizzie disappeared into the tunnel, but the buggane had unfinished business. I saw its mouth open wide to
reveal the sharp triangular teeth within. It bit deep into the throat of Daniel Stanton and drank his blood with relish. When it had drained him, it began to tear at his flesh. I covered my ears to shut out those awful shredding sounds, but then it began to crunch his bones. I thought it would never end but, sated at last, the buggane finally padded away, leaving bloody footprints on the flags. It climbed back into the tunnel and was soon out of sight.

How long would it be before the dream came back for me in spirit form? I wondered, fearful.

I didn’t have long to wait. Within moments, the whispering began inside my head and my heart raced with terror. At first it was almost too faint to hear, but gradually I could make out individual words, such as rot, blood and worms. Then I experienced a sensation that I hadn’t expected – no one had ever described a feeling like this. It was as if a dark cloud had floated down from the ceiling and covered me like a thick cold blanket. The distant sound of dripping water faded and was gone; but even worse than the loss of hearing
was the rapid dimming of my sight. I could no longer see the torches; everything grew dark. I was blind.

My heart was thudding in my chest, the beats becoming laboured. I began to shiver with cold as the buggane slowly drew the energy from my body, stealing away my life force. The whispering grew louder. I could still make no sense of the words, but painful images from the past began to form inside my head, as if I was actually present at the scene.

I was on a mountain path. It was evening and the light was beginning to fail. I could hear a woman sobbing and voices raised in anger. I seemed to be gliding rather than walking and had no control over the direction I was taking. Ahead a rock jutted up like a giant rat’s tooth; around it stood a group of people, amongst them one of Mam’s old enemies, the witch, Wurmalde. I heard a series of heavy rhythmical thuds and saw someone with a hammer. At each blow there was a cry of pain.

Anguish squeezed my heart. I knew exactly where I was; what was happening. I was witnessing the
moment when Mam’s enemies had nailed her left hand to a rock. Blood was dripping down her arm and onto the grass. Once she was nailed, they bound her naked body with the silver chain, wrapping it around the rock. I saw her flinch with pain, the tears running down her cheeks.

‘In three days we’ll return,’ I heard Wurmalde say, her voice filled with cruelty and malice, ‘and then we’ll cut out your heart.’

They left her waiting alone in the darkness – waiting for the sun to come up over the sea in the east; the sun that would burn and blister her body.

I wanted to stay with Mam. I wanted to comfort her; tell her that it would be all right. That my dad would find her in the morning and shelter her from the sun with his shirt and his shadow, and they’d get married and have seven sons. That she’d be happy …

But I couldn’t move, and I was plunged into absolute darkness once more. Happy? On this world, happiness never lasts long. Neither did Mam’s.

In the blink of an eye Mam’s life was over, and now
I was witness to how it all ended. I was back in the Ord, watching her fight with the Ordeen. I’d seen Mam swoop down to attack, her white feathered lamia wings making her more angel than insect. I’d seen her grapple with her salamander-shaped enemy. She’d told me to leave and I’d obeyed, escaping from the Ord with the others – all except Bill Arkwright. I’d seen the destruction of the citadel from a distance, the towers collapsing as it was drawn back through the fiery portal into the darkness waiting beyond, carrying with it poor Mam, and Bill too.

But here I was, at close quarters, watching Mam’s feathers burn, hearing her scream in torment as she held the Ordeen in a death grip.

Fire was all around me now, and I felt physical pain. Flames were singeing my own flesh, but even worse, I could see Mam’s flesh bubbling and burning and hear her long anguished howl as she died in agony.