Master of the Books Page 19

  ‘Stop! Leave him alive,’ came a shout from the opening into the corridor.

  ‘But General Lorian ordered the boy killed on sight,’ one of the soldiers argued, his weapon ready to strike.

  ‘You know who I am,’ said the intruder. ‘Obey my command. Arrest the boy, but don’t harm him or you’ll answer to me!’

  CHAPTER 19

  The Taurine

  MARCEL HAD NEVER BEEN so unhappy to see light brightening the horizon. Any minute now the sun would open its brilliant eye on another day and before that eye closed again in the west, he, his sister and their guardian would be dead. He daydreamed for a moment that Rhys Tironel would stop the sun from rising, then laughed at himself. Not even the Grand Master of Noam had such powerful magic.

  He left the window and returned to the corner of the cell that had become his. In the opposite corner sat Nicola, still wearing the crimson dress Lady Liana had given her, her head resting on Finn’s shoulder. They had remained like that throughout much of the night, something Marcel could understand since the affection between them was so obvious. But it meant he was left alone and he felt that loneliness keenly, since these were his last hours alive.

  Throughout the night he had found himself thinking of Bea. Her messages sent with the peculiar magic of the pigeon’s eggs had spoken of the loneliness she felt at times, even among her own people. They were a pair, Marcel and Bea, blessed with loved ones close at hand, yet each of them was restless for something more, something they had shared during their struggles against the Book of Lies. He wished now that he hadn’t hidden his affection for her when it was his turn to cradle the pigeon in his hands.

  ‘There’s something I can’t work out,’ said Finn. ‘Why did Damon make me write that confession? He doesn’t need it to have me killed. You two are going to die with me and he has no confession from you that he can use as an excuse. It doesn’t make sense.’

  Nothing made much sense to Marcel at that moment. He shifted on the straw, hoping for a more comfortable position on the cold stones beneath, and felt something in his pocket. It was the pouch from around Gadfly’s neck he realised once he’d fished it out. He’d never seen the page that lay inside it, and eager for anything to take his mind off his troubles, he extracted it and smoothed the page out flat.

  He sensed no evil in it, but all the same it brought memories of the tricks and the suffering the Book of Lies had wrought on his family. Staring down at that empty page Marcel wondered whether the Book of Lies had defeated them after all. Should he be so surprised? Lord Alwyn’s magic had created the Book of Lies, and a year after the old wizard’s death that same magic continued to foil Marcel. Most of all, he hadn’t been able to break through the wards that held back his and Nicola’s memories of Queen Ashlere and this was the failure he felt most keenly. Now he wouldn’t get the chance.

  ‘Do you think the dead are reunited with their loved ones, even if they can’t remember them in life?’ he asked, breaking the silence of the cell.

  ‘You mean our mother?’ said Nicola. ‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

  His sister seemed resigned to death. Which was worse: to pace the cell cursing, crying and pleading to be spared, or to sit meekly waiting for the hour to come? Marcel felt utterly helpless: the magic that once inhabited his body had deserted him; the verse on the front page of his blue book was now merely a cruel epitaph to put on his gravestone. He’d spent a year doubting his destiny as a sorcerer, when, in fact, he had no destiny at all.

  The quill and ink Finn had used for his confession still lay on the floor of the cell not far from Marcel’s hand. On impulse, he reached for them. He dabbed the nib into the tiny black pot, then began to write on the page spread across his knees:

  My fate is my own, my heart remains free

  Not magic but wisdom reveals destiny

  When he’d finished, he leaned back against the wall to read them again only to see them disappear before his eyes. He wrote them again, and again they quickly faded from view.

  ‘Hey, look at this,’ he called to the others, who broke stiffly from their place in the corner and crawled across to join him. He wrote the verse a third time while they watched and again the words vanished almost immediately.

  ‘Don’t you see why, Marcel,’ said Nicola, sitting back on her heels. ‘Only lies could be written on that page. Whatever you wrote just now must have been the truth.’

  ‘The truth.’ Marcel couldn’t see how it could be, when those words had taunted him for so long. ‘What does it mean?’ He didn’t know, any more than he knew the meaning of the verse itself, but for the first time since Damon had left them the evening before, he felt hope stirring feebly in his heart.

  ‘Can you hear something?’ said Finn.

  The other two froze instantly, straining their ears until the sound became unmistakably the tread of soldiers’ boots and the clink of weapons against armour. ‘They’re coming for us,’ Nicola said.

  ‘Got all three here, safe and sound,’ the gaoler called to the soldiers as he strolled along the passageway to unlock the door. ‘See, they’re waiting for you, their necks all ready for the axe.’

  ‘Don’t be so heartless,’ scolded the captain who commanded the escort. ‘You’re wrong anyway. They’re not going to the executioner just yet.’

  The gaoler made a face like a little boy who has just had a prize snatched from his hand. With Finn leading the way, the prisoners were taken out of the cell and made to form a line with soldiers ahead of and behind them. ‘Is it true what you told the gaoler?’ the knight asked. ‘Has the general spared our lives?’

  ‘Not the general. It’s the princess who sent me to fetch you.’

  The captain set off at a rapid pace, forcing the soldiers to hurry their prisoners along the corridor. Marcel’s heart was suddenly as light as a cloud inside his chest, and to add to his rising spirits, Termagant appeared at his feet and kept up her own escort all the way to the Gilded Hall where Demiter was waiting. As they passed through the grand entrance they saw one door hanging from a single hinge. The other was missing altogether.

  ‘The taurine did that,’ the princess told them when she saw them staring. ‘My father died in this room, with no one to protect him. It would have killed me too, I suppose, if I hadn’t been visiting —’ She stopped suddenly and glanced around at the guards and a pair of footmen who awaited her orders. ‘If it had found me,’ she said.

  Marcel guessed she had been with General Kendally in the town when the monster had struck and gave thanks for it. ‘We’re sorry to hear about your father,’ he said.

  Demiter winced and fought to keep the mask of solemn control on her face. ‘And I’m sorry that General Lorian seems so determined to see you three dead. Last night he showed me a confession written by you, Sir Finton.’

  ‘He tricked me, Your Highness. He promised to spare Nicola and Marcel if I confessed to a part in Menidae’s murder.’

  ‘I thought it would be something like that. Listen to me, you’re not safe yet, far from it. Since that horrible beast killed my father, General Lorian has been giving the orders. The soldiers prefer it that way and so does half the court. The only reason I could get you released from the cells is because Lorian isn’t here to dismiss my orders.’

  ‘Where is he? What if Ismar starts the attack?’

  Demiter shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s odd, no one seems to know for sure. He’s probably down in the town inspecting our defences, which means he could be back at any minute. I’m doing my best to see that you get a fair hearing, but there’s only so much I can do before they start calling me a weak-minded girl unfit to rule. If they depose me then I can’t help you at all.’

  She turned back to the captain who had brought them from the cell. ‘Bring in the other prisoner.’

  After a call into the corridor the sound of clinking chains could soon be heard growing louder beyond the broken doors. Finally, a figure dragged himself into view.

  ‘F
ergus!’ Nicola cried.

  With such heavy weights around his wrists and ankles, Fergus didn’t need much guarding. Only one soldier accompanied him, tugging a separate length of chain hung around the boy’s waist. ‘Say nothing, or I’ll silence you with the back of my hand,’ said the soldier, who, like so many others in the citadel, had already decided Fergus was a murderer.

  ‘Don’t touch him,’ Demiter warned, then speaking to the captain once more she said, ‘Have your men step back. I want to talk to the prisoners alone.’

  ‘But, Your Highness —’

  ‘Do as I say,’ Demiter commanded.

  The captain didn’t hide his reluctance, nor a hint of resentment at being spoken to so sharply, but Demiter held his gaze until the man nodded to his companions. The rest of the guards stepped back five paces.

  They all turned towards Fergus, who seemed to be cradling his right hand gingerly in his left as he watched them from near the entrance.

  ‘How did they find him?’ asked Finn.

  ‘He was hiding in the tunnels under the keep. It was just as well I was on my way down to the town myself, because the soldiers would have killed him on sight. He told me some wild story about rebels digging a new tunnel in from the outside, but when I sent a sergeant down to investigate, he didn’t see anything. The trouble is, once Lorian finds out he’s been captured, he’ll have him killed straightaway and you three along with him. I want to save you all, but I don’t know how.’

  Demiter had barely finished speaking when shouts came from the battlements, which rose to be almost level with this floor of the keep. Marcel ran to the window and saw a sentry pointing beyond the walls. Another came to look as well, and after a brief exchange, they dropped their weapons and hurried towards the stairs.

  ‘Cowards,’ seethed Finn, who was watching also. ‘What good are sentries who run off at first sight of an enemy soldier?’

  Others with more gumption took their place, and although they didn’t desert their posts, they were obviously frightened by what they saw. Their calls to the rest of the guard on duty soon explained why.

  ‘The taurine! The taurine’s coming back.’

  As soon as the dreaded name was heard in the Gilded Hall, the blood drained from the faces of the soldiers there. They glanced back and forth between their captain and the young princess. Marcel knew why.

  ‘Demiter, it’s coming for you,’ he said. ‘The taurine was supposed to kill you as well as your father, you said so yourself. That’s why Ismar has conjured it into being — to wipe out the royal line of Tamerlane. Now it’s back to finish the job.’

  This was exactly what the soldiers had already worked out, and while Marcel was putting their fears into words, they rushed to the windows. ‘Look, it’s already scaled the walls!’ one shouted.

  Marcel’s view was blocked by the guards now, but he could hear the fighting below. The blood-chilling roar of a monster rose up, mingling with anguished cries from the brave few who were attempting to drive it back. Witnessing the savagery, the soldiers guarding the three children and Finn turned away and bolted for the open doorway.

  ‘Stand fast,’ cried their captain, but none of his men responded. He chased them with his sword drawn, but the last was gone before he could reach them.

  ‘We can’t even bar the door,’ Finn said.

  The captain looked down at the sword in his hand as the loudest roar yet filled the corridors. ‘Only a beast like itself can stop the taurine,’ he said, and dropping the sword at his feet, he followed his men.

  Finn retrieved the sword — the only weapon they had — and Fergus shuffled in his chains to stand with his cousins and the doomed princess. The sight of Finn, one brave man between them and the doorway, seemed to mock their fate.

  ‘Only a beast like itself,’ Marcel muttered, repeating what the captain had said.

  ‘What?’ Nicola asked, but her brother seemed to be in a kind of daze, so she ignored him and stepped towards Finn. ‘What are we going to do?’ she said. ‘It will kill you and then the rest of us.’

  ‘Only a beast,’ said Marcel again. Termagant! Where was she? And he’d need the pouch.

  He thrust his hand into his pocket. With his clumsy fist wrapped around the pouch, he couldn’t get it out again. He tugged violently, and as his hand came free, something else dropped to the floor with a sharp thud. It was the dragon’s tooth Rhys Tironel had given him. He snatched it up just as Nicola screamed and there in the doorway stood the taurine.

  The magic that had created the fiend was expressly forbidden and Marcel saw instantly why this was so. Ismar had begun with a bull, probably commandeered from some farmer’s field, and what had been fused into it was plain to see. The creature’s eyes scanned the room with a man’s intelligence, and instead of supporting itself on four legs it stood upright in the doorway, barely able to enter without catching its horns on the lintel.

  ‘Where is the princess?’ a voice rumbled deep in its throat.

  What Marcel sensed most strongly was the monster’s wrath. Whatever poor soul had been chosen for this magic, he hadn’t surrendered easily. But he was trapped inside the bull’s body now, with enough of his human nature remaining to remind him of it. The bull’s front hooves had become massive hands, each finger tipped by a nail that matched the vicious horns on its head.

  Finn stepped into the beast’s path, bringing more screams from Nicola. The taurine would kill him with a single swat of its terrible claws. There was no time to tie the pouch around Termagant’s neck, there was only time for Marcel’s own magic, the simple spell he’d worked a dozen times to change a tiny cat into the fierce creature of her imagination.

  He began to whisper the verse quickly, afraid that he’d stumble over the words. Then he stopped. This wouldn’t be enough. Termagant would become her purring, harmless self again in a matter of moments. The feel of the dragon’s tooth in his fist brought Rhys Tironel’s words back to him. You are that other kind of sorcerer. Work the magic with your will alone.

  Marcel felt for the powers within the tooth. All he sensed was its coolness tightly against his skin, but he trusted what Rhys had promised him. With this new confidence, he sought out Termagant herself, her heart especially. To know the heart’s desire, that was how the Book of Lies had worked, that was its special power. To his utter amazement, he felt the impulse within the cat and sensed the urge that made her so savage. It was terrible, but at the same time magnificent. He took hold of it and joined it to the magic he was drawing from inside himself and, with the two forces combined, he unleashed them.

  Instantly, Termagant became a spitting, snarling beast standing shoulder to shoulder beside him. She sprang at the taurine, which hadn’t expected such a foe, and caught it full on the chest, knocking the monster onto its back. It came to its senses quickly, though, and heaved her aside before Termagant could sink her fangs into the flesh of its neck. The black cat circled lightly on her paws, growling deep in her throat and demanding the taurine watch her every move.

  ‘Go, Demiter, get out of here while you can,’ Marcel called. When the girl hesitated, he took her by the arm and shoved her from the hall. By then, her instincts had taken over and, lifting the awkward skirts of her dress, she ran off down the passageway.

  The taurine looked around in confusion for its prey and when it saw that Demiter wasn’t among the humans still in the hall, it lashed out with its hoof and knocked Termagant against the wall. Then it turned to Marcel, who was standing in the doorway. Long seconds of torment passed while the monster considered killing the boy, but the magic that had created it was strong and urgent: find the princess, it urged, kill her. The taurine left Marcel unharmed and, sniffing the air in the corridor, went off in the direction Demiter had taken.

  Termagant was getting to her feet unsteadily. ‘This way, we’ve got to reach Demiter before the taurine finds her,’ Marcel cried and, trusting Termagant to follow, he charged off along the corridor.

  The screams of startle
d servants and the roars of the beast itself led him down a flight of stairs and then another. Daylight! He emerged into the courtyard in time to see Demiter flee into the stables. The courtyard itself boiled in chaos as horses broke their tethers and escaped the confines of their stalls, kicking out with their hind legs at the stable boys who tried to restrain them.

  With the taurine already halfway towards the stables, Termagant leapt past Marcel and onto its shoulders, dragging it to the ground. They rolled one way, then another, first with Termagant gaining the upper hand, then the taurine. If the spell failed now, Termagant would be crushed and tossed aside like a worthless pelt. Concentrate, Marcel urged himself, don’t let the spell pass.

  While Termagant fought the monster, Marcel struggled with his own will and felt the immense power of it through every inch of his body, until he wasn’t a body any more but a being separate from it, a force of magic stronger than he had ever known, a force that could turn to disaster at any moment. Not this time though, not with his fist wrapped around the precious gift from Rhys Tironel.

  Termagant drove the beast back into the stables, where its bulk dislodged poles and smashed through walls. Marcel lost sight of them both as the brave cat pursued her foe into the darkness, but the wrestling and circling were done now and the beasts went at one another with teeth and fangs, horns and claws. Roars of outrage told of damage done on both sides and the thrashing of their bodies caused even more devastation to the stables. There came the warning sound of splintering wood, then the crossbeams cracked and the roof of the stables tumbled in.

  Silence enveloped the courtyard. Were the creatures dead? Human faces began to appear from their hiding places, only to duck from sight again when movement amid the rubble answered the question. Strangely unafraid, Marcel stared at the shattered timbers and bundles of thatch as they stirred. Which beast had survived, which would emerge? A head broke free and breathed the air. It was Termagant.