Enoch's Device (35 page)

Everything she had said, Ciarán realized, was what Remi had theorized.
And now it was happening.
As this understanding sank in, a deafening boom split the air, and the stairwell shook like the deck of a ship in a storm.

“We must hurry!” Orionde demanded. Her pace quickened, and Ciarán found himself struggling to keep up. Every forty steps, the staircase reached a landing with an iron-bound door set into the interior wall, before continuing up Rosefleur. Ciarán counted five doors as he did his best to keep up with Orionde. His legs began to ache, and his heart drummed in his chest. The higher they climbed, the more debris littered the stairwell, and cracks ran down the walls like spidery veins. Ciarán glanced warily at the cracks and then noticed that the stairwell ended about twenty feet up ahead, blocked by one more iron-bound door.

Just then, another boom shook the walls, and Ciarán stumbled forward, catching himself just before his head could smash against the stone steps. As the quaking subsided, a smoky haze began to seep from under the door ahead, and the stench of brimstone flooded the stairwell. Then a ghastly sound resonated from beyond the door, like a legion of banshees squealing in triumph.

Orionde looked grave. “The Nephilim engines have breached the tower’s walls,” she said. “The demons have found their way through.”

“Demons . . . ?” Ciarán’s heart sunk. Behind her, the door began to shake, as if something were trying to batter it down.

“We counted more than a hundred circling above the tower.”

“What will we do?” he asked, alarmed.

Orionde shook her head gently. “I’m afraid the prophecy comes with a few rules. And one of them is that only the champion can take Enoch’s device.”

Ciarán’s mouth fell open, while the door at the top of the stairwell clattered as if it would burst from its hinges.

Orionde glanced at the door, then back at Ciarán. “Which means,” she said, “that you must fight your way through them—alone.”

“H
ow will we stop them?”
Isaac asked.

Dónall grimaced. “I’m working on it,” he said.

They stood at the base of a broad oak festooned with moss and ringed by toadstools, while overhead a canopy of tangled branches blocked out the sky. A curtain of cold mist surrounded the forest’s edge, stopping abruptly where it met the barren red plain. Isaac peeked out of the foliage and looked across the plain to the east, where giant warriors gathered around one of the iron war beasts that spewed fire at the walls of Rosefleur.

“Look at them,” Isaac said in awe. “Hebrew scholars believe the Israelites killed all the Nephilim that survived the Great Flood—including Goliath, who was among the last. But clearly they were wrong.”

Dónall rubbed his chin. “Some of them had to survive. It explains the Formorian giants of Irish myth, and the frost giants of the Norse. And if Enoch was right, the Nephilim have angelic blood, so perhaps they’re immortal or live extra-long lives, but for centuries they’ve hidden in the shadows of the Otherworld.”

“And now they serve the Dragon.”

“Just as John of Patmos wrote in the book of Revelation,” Dónall said. “When the Dragon is released from his prison, he shall gather the armies of Gog and Magog for battle. It’s all coming true.” Dónall looked up the trunk of the tall oak beside them. He could no longer see Khalil, who was lost in the leafy branches. “Have you reached the top?”

“Yes,” Khalil called down.

“What can you see?” Isaac asked.

“It does not look good,” Khalil said. “Across this plain is a river, where I count five ships lined with oars, and five barges, which they must have used to transport those iron beasts. Between the river and the tower is a huge pit, about four hundred yards from here. It glows as if some great fire burns deep inside it, and that is the source of the smoke that gathers in the sky. Around the pit are black-robed men, twenty or more. But with them are at least three of these pale giants, and one of them looks like a priest performing some type of ritual. There is also a large cattle pen filled with scores of men—Franks, like those on this battlefield. Yet I am afraid that these men are in no shape to fight, for they are being slaughtered one by one and cast into the pit.”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Human sacrifice, then.”

Dónall shook his head.
My God, Lucien, is this what you’ve become?
He called back up to Khalil. “Have they posted sentries around the pit?”

“None that I can see,” Khalil replied. “They seem intent on this ritual.”

“How far is the pit from the forest’s edge?” Dónall asked.

“No more than forty yards, at best.”

“Good, then they won’t see us coming.” Dónall waited until Khalil climbed down the tree, and then explained his plan. Then, turning toward the smoke billowing from the underworld, he said, “It’s time to end this.”

*

Atop the narrow stairwell inside Rosefleur, the iron-bound door shook violently on its hinges, and black smoke seeped under the crack between the door and the stone floor. Ciarán stared slack-jawed at the door, knowing what was behind it.
More than a hundred demons,
Orionde had said.

“How am I supposed to fight my way through them?” he asked her.

“Beyond this door is a circular hall,” she said. “In the center of the hall is our sanctum sanctorum, sealed with another door. You will recognize it. Beyond that door is Enoch’s device. When you see it, remember the form it takes in this millennium, and seize it. As for the demons, there are many of them, but they are incorporeal, so their greatest weapon is possession.”

A shuddering chill ran down Ciarán’s spine as he recalled the terror in the amphitheater outside Poitiers. “What can I possibly do to prevent that?”

“Steel your thoughts,” she told him sternly. “Focus your mind on something dear to you—an emotion so deep it will become an iron wall against the demons’ attack.”

Ciarán thought of Alais, but then a new fear invaded his mind.
If I fail, what happens to her?
He could not think of her, he decided; the thought felt too fragile. He thought harder and, after a few moments, focused his mind on Derry. On Niall, Murchad and Fintan, and Bran and the twins. On the brothers who fought so bravely to save Dónall and Ciarán from Bishop Adémar.

From behind the door came the sound of whispers in some dark, alien tongue. The smoke seeping beneath the door began to fill the stairwell. “All this smoke . . . how will I see?”

“That I can help you with,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then, go!” Orionde jerked open the door. Beyond it rose a hissing, whispering wall of black smoke, which began to flood the stairwell. Ciarán drew in a breath as the whispers coalesced into a frightening squeal that sent a shiver of panic up his spine. He could see nothing through the thick smoke, but then he heard Orionde utter a familiar word: “
Eoh!
”

From her outstretched hands sprang beams of bluish light that flickered through the chamber before them like an inferno of Saint Elmo’s fire. In the light, the smoke became an opaque gray haze, but it was the other things caught in her light that made Ciarán gasp: scores upon scores of demons, stacked one upon the other, climbing, groping, and clawing their way toward Ciarán like a horde of insects pouring from their nest. Their collective mass filled the chamber beyond, from the stone floor to an arched ceiling a dozen feet above. With eyes smoldering like hot coals, their faces contorted in ghastly screams. Some had hair that writhed like Gorgons’ manes, while others were hairless, with skin stretched over gaunt skeletal forms, and all of them reaching toward Ciarán with spidery fingers and ragged nails. Ciarán stood frozen at the sight. In the doorway, the nearest demon, a childlike imp with a hateful gaze, raked a clawed hand across Ciarán’s face. Ciarán winced, anticipating the biting pain from its jagged claws, but the phantom hand passed right through him, leaving a bone-tingling chill but no physical wound.

“They cannot harm the flesh,” Orionde insisted. “Guard your mind, and force your way through them!”

Ciarán nodded. Then, focusing all his thoughts on his fallen friends, he stepped into the bedlam.

The horde of demons came at him. Incorporeal nails scratched at the edges of his brain, and the smell of smoke and brimstone overwhelmed him as the maniacal howling rose in a deafening crescendo. Though the demons clawed relentlessly at his mind, the more he focused his thoughts on the memories of his brethren, the less he felt their presence. Ciarán took another step and pushed past the demons as if they did not exist. To his surprise, the only resistance was a buffeting wind that blasted through the circular chamber, between the doorway and a wall, a dozen feet away, that curved parallel to the outer wall. Both the outer and inner walls flickered with blue flames from Orionde’s light, but the wind carried smoke, and for an instant Ciarán feared he may run out of breath. In that momentary panic, he felt the demons surge into his thoughts. So he pushed back the fear and concentrated on Derry’s grove and the bravery his friends had shown there.

He fought his way through the wind, searching for the door to the sanctum sanctorum, when he felt something sting his arm. Glancing down, he saw blood on the sleeve of his tunic. Then something bit into his leg. It was not the demons’ claws, he realized, but debris. Ahead, he could see a man-size hole in the tower’s outer wall. Smoke and wind poured through the hole, and all around it were demons, spinning their arms and whipping the wind into a frenzy that flung bits of shattered stone through the air. Ciarán shielded his head as another piece glanced painfully off his forearm. Most of the debris was small, but it hit him like a swarm of hornets, and soon blood was welling from many tiny wounds. Then he saw the door.

It stood in the inner wall, just ten feet away, and though wailing demons blocked the way, he could see through their ghostly forms to a symbol on the portal: an eye beneath a curved brow, glowing with Saint Elmo’s fire. Like the ankh, it was a symbol in Coptic texts: the Eye of Horus. Wondering how these symbols related to the Fae, Ciarán pressed his way toward the door, doing his best to ignore the stinging pain.

Then, without warning, the direction of the wind changed, the sudden new blast knocking him sideways. The wind pushed him toward the breach in the outer wall while, all around him, the scores of demons looked on, their burning eyes and gaping mouths wide with bloodthirsty glee. His feet skidded on the rubble as he staggered backwards, only just catching himself at the ragged edge of the breach. His left arm flailed in the open air, and for an instant he glimpsed the battlefield some fifteen stories below. His left leg dangled outside the breach, but his right hand clung to the edge of the gaping hole, and he struggled to pull himself back inside the tower.

He tried bracing his right leg inside the broken wall, but he still hung precariously halfway out of the breach, unable to buck the buffeting wind that threatened to suck him outside to his death.

The demons surged toward him like a wave. Cascading over his dangling body, they pulled and wrenched at his limbs with their phantom claws as a loud cheer rose from the besieging army below. Then one of the iron beasts let loose with another thunderous roar. The projectile whizzed over Ciarán’s head and struck the outer wall, several yards above the breach where he hung, but the shuddering impact sent him sprawling forward onto the stone floor. He tried to ignore the shooting pain in his shoulder, for he realized he was back in the tower—and just eight feet from the door.

The demons’ wind screamed above him, so that if he stood up, it would blow him back into the breach. So Ciarán began to crawl. The smoke, caught up in the wind, stayed inches above the floor, and he sucked in enough clean air to keep moving forward. The demons crawled over him, hissing and howling and prying at the wall he had erected around his mind. But he pressed on, keeping his thoughts on Derry and his gaze on the Eye of Horus.

Reaching the door, he lunged against it, only to have it fly open into the room beyond and send him stumbling to the floor. Behind him, the wind sucked the door shut again. Exhausted, Ciarán took a long breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself staring at a stone tile embedded in the floor. An ankh had been carved into the tile, and surrounding it were more tiles with more symbols, as if Remi had recreated his madman’s shrine, but this time with the precision of a master artist. Many of the symbols were Fae sigils, like those in Maugis’ book, while some were astrological signs, and others were distinctly Hebrew in shape. Still others appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yet it was the source of the amber light in the center of the chamber that captured Ciarán’s attention. For in the middle of the sanctum sanctorum stood a round pedestal, and floating above it was the source of the glow: an object that made him gasp in awe.

Enoch’s words repeated in his mind:
“For at the end of the whole earth, I saw a great and glorious device.”

At the object’s center was a brilliant gemstone the size of a large denier. This was the source of the glow, yet the object around the stone was in constant flux. One moment, it was a chalice of gleaming gold, with the gemstone embedded in its stem; then the bowl collapsed and the base elongated, its color shimmering as gold became steel. At one end of the lengthening blade, a hilt and a cross-shaped guard appeared, the gemstone embedded in the pommel. Then the sword grew longer still, its steel darkening into a black staff. What was the sword’s hilt morphed and shimmered into a golden ankh, with the gemstone glittering in its center. And then everything around the gem—the ankh and staff—was sucked into it until nothing was left but the stone, glowing in the air above the pedestal. A moment later, the bowl of the chalice sprouted from the top of the gem, and a base grew beneath it, shimmering until it solidified into gold, holding its shape for a moment until the shape changed again, repeating the cycle.

From cup . . . to sword . . . to staff . . . to stone.

Ciarán watched, fascinated, until he realized that set in the floor surrounding the pedestal was a ring of twelve tiles, each bearing a symbol of the zodiac. Four of the tiles glowed more brightly than the rest:
Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius—the symbols of the prime conflict
.

Ciarán knew what must be done, and he recalled clearly Orionde’s words:
“When you see Enoch’s device, remember the form it takes in this millennium, and seize it.”
Outside, another boom echoed, and the chamber’s walls quaked with the impact.
We’re running out of time,
he reminded himself.

He approached the pedestal and waited through the transformations, from staff to stone, to chalice, until the blade of the sword grew from the cup’s base, and the hilt was fully formed. Then, wrapping his fingers around it, he drew it from its place above the pedestal.

The sword felt heavy in his hand, but its form held. He stared at the diamond-bright gem embedded in the pommel. A flickering light danced across its facets for an instant before fading to a dull-gray opacity, blending with the iron of the hilt.

He glanced back toward the door, wondering for an instant why the demons had not poured, gibbering and howling, into the chamber. The answer came quickly. Orionde had called this place “sanctum sanctorum”—
holy of holies.
Hallowed ground.
But as soon as he stepped out of the chamber, he would be back among them, and dangerously close to the gaping breach in the outer wall.

He looked again at Enoch’s device, this fabled object that, according to Isaac, contained the stone etched with the one true name of God. Other than the gemstone in its pommel, it had no elaborate metalwork or adornments—just a dark leather grip, a sturdy guard, and a long, double-edged blade of gleaming steel. Ciarán swung, and the blade whooshed through the air. It felt well balanced in his grip. It was time. He drew a long breath and let it out, then pulled open the door and stared into the mass of demons.

Their squeals had hushed into a buzz of anxious whispers. At the sight of the weapon, the eyes of the nearest demons sprang wide. Ciarán turned at the hip, swinging the sword straight through them. The first demon it struck exploded into crimson flames, as did three more, leaving not even a smoking remnant of their existence. Feeling a surge of hope, Ciarán arced the sword upward. The blade passed through demons as if through thin air, and the five demons in its path flared red and were gone. The demonic horde broke into a terrified wail. Then, with a loud sucking sound, those still living turned and fled through the breach, taking the wind and black smoke with them until nothing remained in the chamber except Orionde, standing at the doorway to the stairwell, a faint smile on her lips.