I nodded that was true enough. We hurried down through the throne room and descended the steps towards the dungeons. We pa.s.sed safely through the guardroom and, taking a lantern from a hook, headed along the damp narrow pa.s.sageway towards the dungeons.
There were a lot of cells but we didn"t need to check each one because the empty ones had their doors open. At last we came to two that were locked. I used my key and opened the first one to find Adriana sitting on the floor in the corner, her head in her hands. When she saw that it was us, she jumped up and rushed over.
"What happened to my mother?" she asked, her eyes full of tears.
"They took her home," I said. "I"m really sorry, Adriana, about your father-"
"She killed him then? They dragged me out before I could be sure what had happened." She looked at me, her dark eyes sorrowful.
"Yes, she killed him," I admitted, bowing my head. I didn"t tell her about Lizzie summoning his spirit from Limbo; it would only have added to her pain.
"My mother will find it hard to live without him," she said, beginning to sob. "Father was always so outspoken."
"He was brave," I said, "but he couldn"t have known what he was up against how powerful Lizzie really is ..."
"We"re going to try and escape from the keep down the tunnels," Alice said, patting Adriana"s shoulder sympathetically. "It"ll be dangerous but it"s better than staying here."
We left her cell, and I inserted my key into the lock of the next one. It was stiff, and for a few moments I struggled to turn the key. Eventually it yielded and I opened the door. Alice held up the lantern and we peered inside.
I saw the earthen wall and the tunnel in it. Then something moved. My heart lurched and I stepped back nervously. At first I thought it was the buggane, but then the Spook shuffled towards us, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the glare of the light. He"d been in the dark for a long time.
"Well, lad, you"re a sight for sore eyes and no mistake."
I smiled and handed him his staff. "I"ve lots of things to tell you but it"ll have to wait till later. The guards could come looking for us at any moment. We"re going to try and escape down the buggane"s tunnels. It"s either that or back up the stairs to face Lizzie. And she controls the yeomen now."
The Spook nodded. "Then we"ve little choice. We don"t know where the tunnels lead, so we might as well try up here," he said, pointing back to the dark entrance in the earth wall of his own cell.
I suddenly wondered why he hadn"t already made his escape down that tunnel. Locked in my cell earlier, I"d made the decision not to risk it. But I was still an apprentice and he was the Spook; he must have thought that it would be his only chance to escape before being tortured and killed. Had he lacked the strength and courage to face the tunnel alone? I had little time to dwell on that thought before Alice spoke again.
"We do know where one of the tunnels leads," she said. "The one from the long room where the dogs fought it leads to that hollow tree ..."
"But it"s surrounded by a bone-yard, Alice," I reminded her.
"It"s very dangerous, but I might be able to find Lizzie"s secret path out. I"m prepared to try."
"Make a mistake and you"d be crushed to death in seconds, girl," the Spook said, shaking his head.
"Ain"t any better option," Alice retorted. "Otherwise we"ll be travelling blind through the buggane"s tunnels."
The Spook sighed, then nodded his agreement. "Right, you lead the way then ..."
We left his cell and followed the pa.s.sageway along; soon it widened out and there were dry stone flags under our feet. We helped ourselves to more wall lanterns; we"d need as much light as possible in the tunnel. As we approached the long room, we heard loud barks; the stench of death and animal faeces was overpowering. We saw that the three wolfhounds were still locked in their cages and Lord Barrule"s rotting body lay where it had fallen next to the throne.
"We should let the dogs out," I said. "They haven"t been fed. It might be days before anybody bothers to do anything about them."
"Take care, lad," the Spook warned me. "They"ve been cruelly treated who knows how they"ll react?"
Warily, we released them. But the dogs neither attacked us nor fought each other. A couple bounded out of the room immediately, but most just wandered about forlornly. Claw, Blood and Bone, however, were pleased to see me. It was good to pat them again and see their tales wagging with excitement; their joy brought a lump to my throat. They were starving and dirty, and I felt angry at the way they"d been treated, but at least the shaman"s power over them was broken and they were their old selves again. When we entered the tunnel at the end of the room, they followed us in.
I took the lead, Alice at my heels, and the Spook followed behind Adriana in case we were attacked from the rear. The tunnel was just earth, with no wooden supports like a mine, and the thought of that weight of soil above us was scary. We could easily be buried alive down here; segments of tunnel must collapse all the time. There were roots visible too; sometimes they were twisted like snakes and I had to keep telling myself that they weren"t moving.
The lanterns were very much more effective than the candle stub we"d used the first time I came down here with Alice and Lizzie, and it wasn"t long before we saw the first of the bones: they weren"t lying in large piles, as in the lair of a bone witch, but we never went more than twenty yards without catching a glimpse of some fragment of a human skeleton. Sometimes it was a skull half buried in the side wall of the tunnel, or a fragment of a leg or arm bone, or just a few fingers or toes. However, I did not sense any lingering spirits here; they were just remains. I paused beside an almost intact human foot; only the little toe was missing. To the left of it was a skull; a tree root had twisted its way in through the left eye-socket and emerged from the right before continuing down into the soil.
"Why are there so many bones down here?" I called back to the Spook. "Do they belong to prisoners who tried to escape from the cells?"
"A few maybe," he replied. "But the buggane regurgitates some of the bones it"s swallowed after feeding."
I shuddered, realizing that the foot and the skull had spent time in the buggane"s stomach.
For about five minutes we made good progress, but then we encountered a problem. There were thick tree roots ahead of us, completely blocking the main tunnel. Another tunnel went off at an angle, heading downwards. It was new and freshly dug; I didn"t like the look of it one bit.
Chapter 19.
"This is the buggane"s doing," I said. "What now?" "To reach the hollow tree we need to get past those roots somehow," Alice replied.
"We could dig round it with our staffs but it"ll take ages. I know a better way," I said, turning to look past Alice and Adriana. "There are roots blocking our way!" I shouted to the Spook. "Reverse back down the tunnel a bit. We need to give the dogs room to work. Claw! Blood! Bone!"
The dogs came squeezing past us eagerly as the others retreated. I dug at the earth beside the roots with my hands and pointed ahead. Soon the three wolfhounds were burrowing away enthusiastically, throwing earth backwards with their paws. In fact we got two tunnels instead of one because Claw worked to the left while Blood and Bone dug their own tunnel to the right.
The latter was the larger excavation, and the Spook and I widened it with the blades of our staffs until we could squeeze through.
At last we were moving again. I began to feel optimistic about escaping from the hollow tree. It was dangerous, but if anyone could find the secret way through the bone-yard it was Alice.
But soon we encountered another problem, this one much worse than before. We found the pa.s.sage ahead completely blocked with hard-packed earth. Once again a new tunnel had been excavated by the buggane; one that headed sharply downhill.
The Spook crawled forward to join me, shaking his head. "We could try digging again, but the whole tunnel might have caved in behind," he said. "I don"t like it, lad. It"s almost as if we"re being herded like sheep. Forced downwards to where someone wants us to be."
"The buggane?" I asked.
"Maybe but it could be acting for Lizzie. By now she"ll probably know that we"ve escaped the tower. We either retreat the way we came or go down there," he said, pointing towards the new tunnel.
"If we go back, they"ll be waiting. This time Lizzie will put us all in the dungeons," I said.
The Spook shrugged. "Then we must go on. I"ll take the lead now, lad who knows what we"re about to face?" And with those words he set off, crawling along the tunnel.
The descent got steeper and I was growing increasingly uneasy. I sensed danger ahead.
Then the pa.s.sage began to widen, and the Spook got to his feet, lifting the lantern. Moments later, we saw a vast s.p.a.ce ahead, the walls so distant that the light couldn"t reach them. We were at the entrance to a huge cavern.
Even the dogs were silent. They stayed behind us, unwilling to venture in any further and explore. Perhaps they felt as we did: a sense of awe; a feeling that we faced something totally new and beyond our experience.
"I didn"t expect this," said the Spook, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "I think I know what this place is. I thought it was just a myth a story. But it"s real ..."
"What"s real?" I asked. "What is it?"
But the Spook just muttered something to himself and didn"t answer my question.
"This ain"t been done by the buggane," said Alice. "Take ten lifetimes to make a burrow this big, even if its claws could dig through rock."
"This was here already and the buggane chanced upon it," my master said.
"Or maybe it knew about it," said Adriana, emerging from the dark tunnel. "Maybe it deliberately chose to build its labyrinth here because it knew about this cavern."
"But what would it want something so big for?" I asked, thinking aloud.
"Well, as I"ve already told you, lad," said the Spook, "a buggane takes the animus, the life force of a human, and stores it at the centre of its labyrinth; it was working with the shaman, so it needed lots of s.p.a.ce. But this is immense far beyond what it should need."
"What does it use the animas for?"
"Well, we know that for a shaman they"re a source of magical power, giving him control over animals and allowing him to project his spirit far from his body. But as for the buggane, n.o.body"s ever had a real conversation with such a creature. It whispers, it threatens, then sucks out the animus and kills its victim, but we don"t know why. The shaman, Lord Barrule, would know more, but he"s dead now ...
"Well, lad," my master went on, "you asked me what this place is, and I"ll tell you. It"s something I didn"t think I"d live to see. Something I"ve only heard tell of. It"s known as the "Grim Cache" after its creator, and it"s the largest source of animism in the world. It was first acc.u.mulated by a shaman called Lucius Grim many centuries ago. It"s said that he was able to project his spirit into the dark itself, but eventually his soul was consumed by a daemon. This is his legacy, no doubt added to by other shamans since the latest being Lord Barrule. Anyway, let"s move on but keep close to the cavern wall. Who knows we might find another way out."
The Spook led the way, the dogs following behind, still subdued. Underneath our feet soft mud gave way to rock. It wasn"t long before Alice gasped in astonishment she had noticed something ahead. "Something up there," she said. "I can see lights moving. Don"t like the look of "em."
We looked up to where she was pointing. Tiny points of yellow light like distant stars were combining to form intricate patterns, moving more like a shoal of fish than a flock of birds. I tried to count them; it was difficult, but I thought there were seven. Suddenly one detached itself from the rest and floated down towards us. As it approached, I saw that it was a glowing sphere.
"Fire elementals!" cried Alice. "Just like the ones we saw in Greece ..."
We"d faced different types of fire elemental there, ranging from fiery orbs to asteri, which looked like five-pointed stars. They were all deadly and could burn you to cinders in moments. They"d certainly done for Bill Arkwright.
However, the Spook shook his head. "Nay, girl, whatever they are, they won"t be fire elementals. It"s too damp in this cavern. In fact this whole island has a wet climate very similar to the County. It"s no place for ent.i.ties like that. They couldn"t survive here."
As if to prove him right, rather than attacking us, the glowing orb backed away, drifting upwards, and once more became a distant point of light, having rejoined its companions in their strange dance. It was as if it had taken a close look at us and decided we were of no interest.
It was then that the Spook first noticed that Alice was carrying a book. "Where did you get that, girl?" he demanded with a frown. "Did it belong to the shaman?"
Alice nodded. "It"s his notebook. Brought it so that Lizzie wouldn"t get her hands on it and learn new things about the dark. Best that we have it, don"t you think?"
My master looked unconvinced but said nothing, and we continued to follow the curved wall of the cavern. Once again it was Alice who brought us to a halt. She sniffed loudly, three times. "There"s something ahead and coming this way," she warned. "Something from the dark ..."
No sooner had she said that than all three dogs began to growl; they had sensed the danger too. We held our lanterns aloft and saw a figure approaching us.
"It"s the abhuman," Alice said as he moved into the arcs of light.
She was right. Horn was alone. The two holes in his ears where they"d attached the chains still appeared inflamed, and his blind, milky-white eyeb.a.l.l.s moved as if he were a.s.sessing each one of us in turn.
The union between the Fiend and a witch could produce a wide range of different offspring. Grimalkin, the witch a.s.sa.s.sin, had once given birth to a perfectly human baby boy; the Fiend had killed it on the spot for just that reason. Then there was Alice, born fully human but with the potential to become a powerful witch. Here, at the other end of the scale, was this daemonic figure, a horned beast like the father who"d sired him.
The Spook readied his staff and approached the creature.
The abhuman hissed at him through his teeth, then spoke in a harsh voice. "Follow me," he rasped.
"And why should we do that?" demanded my master, raising his staff threateningly.
"Follow me," Horn repeated. He turned and headed into the darkness.
I didn"t like the idea of leaving the relative safety of the rock wall. I had a bad feeling about venturing out into the vastness of the cavern: you could get lost; or just be swallowed up by the darkness.
"Wait!" cried the Spook, no doubt thinking the same thing. "You need to give us a good reason to follow you otherwise we stay here!"
The abhuman turned back to face us, and his face twisted in anger, the glare of a feral beast rather than a human being. "You must follow. You have no choice."
"There"s always a choice to be made," said the Spook. "Aye, there"s always that. Suppose we choose to stay here ..."
"Then you will stay here in this cavern until you die. There is no escape from here unless I wish it. Now that my master is dead, I control the buggane. Despite all the efforts of the witch, it still does as I command at least for the moment."
"He could be lying," Adriana said, lowering her voice. "It"s safer to stay here."
"Not if all the entrances and exits are made by the buggane," I replied.
"And I suspect that"s exactly what we"ll find," said the Spook. "I fear that the wisest option for now is to do as he asks."
So we reluctantly followed the abhuman into the cavern. Soon the walls were far behind us and we continued in the pool of yellow light cast by our lanterns, beyond which nothing seemed to exist. Darkness extended in every direction. Our footsteps echoed in the silence and I grew increasingly nervous.
The situation soon became even worse: our lanterns all began to dim until, after a few moments, they gave off only the faintest of glows. This had to be the work of dark magic, and the Spook immediately held up his hand, motioning us to halt. No sooner had we done so than the lanterns went out completely, plunging us into absolute darkness.
Was it a trick? I wondered fearfully. Had Horn lured us out here to our deaths?
Chapter 20.
I stood there, preparing myself for some sort of attack at any moment, but nothing happened.
"Keep moving forward," Horn commanded from up ahead in the darkness. "We are almost there ..."
We shuffled along very slowly; it was so dark that I couldn"t even see the Spook in front of me. But for the sound of his boots on rock, he could have vanished. Then I saw a faint glow.
As we got nearer, the luminosity grew; not in intensity but in size. It reminded me of the glowing sphere that had descended from the cavern roof to take a look at us. But whereas that had been small and yellow, this was red and immense. Neither was it a true sphere; it flexed and shifted its shape, as if under pressure from invisible internal or external forces.
From a distance it had appeared to have a definite outline, but as we approached, we saw that it was more like a mist in a forest dell, diffuse on its perimeter but far denser within. Already the abhuman was walking into it and becoming more indistinct. We followed on my part, with increasing reluctance: I wondered if everybody else felt the same. The skin on my hands and face was tingling, my sense of danger increasing with every step I took. Then the abhuman came to a halt and turned to face us just a horned silhouette against the radiance.
"This is indeed the cache of Lucius Grim I was right," said the Spook.
"It presents no danger to you," Horn told him. "At least, not in itself. It"s the place where the buggane stores the life force that it steals from the living. It"s energy, that"s all a vast store of animas reaped over centuries."
"Think of the hundreds of people it"s murdered." The Spook shook his head in disgust.