Entangled (70 page)

Now she could deal with the other one. She wrenched its head away from its body with her free hand, but even as it died it raked its talons down her side, filling her with a stabbing mortal pain.

There was no time to explain to Ria.

Leoni felt an instant shocking drain of power and all at once, like a cloud of mist in a breath of wind, her aerial body gave up the unequal struggle to remain whole, was scattered into gossamer threads and vanished.

The last thing she knew was falling away into nothingness.

The labyrinth of caves that led from the outside world into Secret Place was an impressive and terrible obstacle. Without personal knowledge of it, or a guide, or sorcery, it was difficult to see how attackers could ever find their way through its confusing twists and turns, dark deadfalls, circuitous tunnels and blind passages. Still Ria was surprised and concerned to discover Brindle had posted no sentries to guard the exit. As she started the process of leading her horde of injured and exhausted refugees out onto the hillside she reflected they might as easily be Illimani warriors ready to sweep down on the campfires of Secret Place that twinkled in the night just a few bowshots below. With an enemy like Sulpa it was best to take nothing for granted, but now was not the time to scold her friend for this lapse: ‘Brindle.’ She sent out her thought-voice: ‘I’m back! We’re all back. We all made it. Something amazing happened.’

There was no reply and Ria became alert. ‘What’s up, Grondin?’ she asked. ‘Why can’t I reach Brindle?’

The big Ugly looked worried: ‘Don’t know. I too cannot reach him.’

It wasn’t the same sort of interruption of thought-talk they’d experienced during the battle at the Naveen camp. Then it had been lost to all of them; they still didn’t know why. But now Oplimar, Jergat and Grondin reported open contact with friends and relatives below in Secret Place, and already figures could be seen running up the hillside to greet them – so this was a problem with Brindle alone.

‘No problem with Brindle,’ Grondin announced a moment later. ‘He’s busy. Working in the Cave of Visions. Can’t talk to us right now.’

Busy? Ria was outraged. How dare Brindle be busy? Didn’t he know – didn’t he want to know – about her incredible victory? What could he possibly be doing that was more important than that?

After the battle, and a long day’s forced march, Ria had brought almost two thousand refugees to Secret Place. It was a huge number.
Fear had kept them silent and biddable until now but they hailed from a dozen different tribes, with different languages and customs, and their group behaviour tended towards chaos. Getting them out of the labyrinth and marshalling them on the hillside in the darkness was already taking a very long time and then the Uglies would have to find them food, shelter, sleeping spaces and other necessities of life on the terraces below.

Ria felt weary at the prospect. She’d done enough. Her companions could organise the refugees without her help. ‘Sort it all out,’ she told them. ‘I’m going to find Brindle.’

Making her way through the crowd of Uglies streaming up to welcome the new arrivals, she set off downhill towards Secret Place.

Most evenings the broad natural platform in front of the Cave of Visions was packed with little groups of Uglies sitting around fires, cooking, eating, talking and dancing. Tonight the space was deserted except for four guards, armed with spears, who stood at the entrance to the cave.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ria asked as she approached.

‘Keeping everyone out,’ one of the guards replied. He was young, with heavy brow ridges and wispy hair on his chin.

‘I’m going in,’ said Ria.

‘Cannot let you in …’ A second guard was speaking now. Older, grey-haired, with large drooping leathery ears, he had a stubborn slow-moving look about him.

Ria sighed: ‘Don’t even think of stopping me. I’ve killed more men today than I can count.’ She didn’t want to hurt these Uglies but she would not allow them to thwart her. She stepped forward, the older guard tried to block her and in a flash she unsheathed her knife and held its blade to his throat. ‘I’m going in,’ she pulsed again, gritting her teeth. She pushed him aside and walked into the vast cave.

It was midnight black within, but Ria knew from her previous visits that the floor of the Cave of Visions was roughly circular. It extended more than eight hundred paces from side to side under a huge vaulted roof that rose at its peak to a height of almost two bowshots. She paused to be sure the guards hadn’t followed her through the entrance tunnel and to get her bearings. Up ahead she could hear a large group of Uglies giving out a strange, hooting chant – quite different from the one they used for healing – but the echoes in the chamber and the thick
darkness made it impossible to be sure where the sound was coming from.

Ria walked slowly towards the centre of the cave – ten paces, thirty, sixty, a hundred – feeling her way over the uneven floor with the toes of her moccasins. There was no light from outside, and no lamps were burning, yet every step forward seemed to offer her tantalising glimpses through the absolute blackness of … something.

She squinted and stooped, felt some disturbance in the air.

There!
What was that?

Lit by a faint ghostly radiance, a giant fang of rock went flying past her with its base a hand’s breadth above the floor. It was bigger and faster than a charging rhino and she was close enough to touch it.
Fuck!
She just had time to realise she would have been dead if she’d got in front of it when another massive rock hurtled out of the darkness and shot past – WHOOSH! – followed by another, and another. They all seemed to be moving in the same direction, not randomly, and not even in a straight line, like an avalanche, but in a weird and unnatural whirling circle.

Then it dawned on her. This was the outer ring of Brindle’s stone circle – the idea the blue woman had given him in a vision that she’d said would help to fight Sulpa. He must have built it. But how was he keeping the stones off the ground? How was he making them fly?

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! Two more of the megaliths whizzed past just in front of her nose.

‘Where are you, Brindle?’ Ria pulsed. ‘Let me through.’

There came a change in the pitch of the Uglies’ chant, from an irregular, snarling rumble to a steady sonorous roar. At the same moment the big stones ceased their restless whirling and froze in place. Either their inner radiance was growing, or her eyes were becoming more accustomed to the darkness, but Ria found she could see all of them now – all thirty of them – even the ones farthest away. They were arranged in a circle a hundred paces from side to side, and they surrounded the two inner circles of stones exactly as Brindle had shown her.

She heard his thought-voice. ‘I can’t stop the stones dancing for long, Ria. It would be a good idea if you came through now.’

She stepped between two of the huge grey megaliths, towering over her head. No sooner had she passed them than there was a further
change in the pitch of the chant and the outer circle once more began to rotate rapidly – WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

Still frozen in their places, the inner ring of twenty black stones now loomed before Ria. Again, as soon as she had stepped through between two of them, the entire circle resumed its rotation.

The light radiated by all the stones had increased to such a level that Ria could see Brindle. He stood at the centre of the innermost ring of eight gigantic white megaliths, each four times the height of a man. He had undergone an incredible transformation. His body was skeletal and dirty. His hair was matted. His eyes, hollow and dark-shadowed under his brow ridges, gleamed with feverish heat.

A few more paces and Ria was at his side. ‘What’s happened to you, old friend?’ she asked.

‘I’ve made this marvellous thing,’ Brindle replied, with an excited grin. There was a further change of pitch in the chanting deep in the cave, becoming more insistent, more urgent, and the inner circle began to rotate rapidly again, a hand’s breadth above the floor, until all was a blur and the individual stones could no longer be seen.

Ria watched the revolving circles with amazement – three circles, fifty-eight huge upright stones all suspended a hand’s breadth above the ground, all glowing with inner light and hurtling at tremendous speed around the still point at the centre where she stood with Brindle. The chanting that filled the cave continued to rise in intensity, and in the growing illumination cast by the stones Ria saw four separate groups of Ugly males gathered at intervals beyond the outer circle. As was their custom when they performed healings, they stood in knots of ten or so, their arms linked around each other’s shoulders, chanting in unison. But this was no healing ceremony. It was obvious the sounds they were making – not lulling and restorative but stirring and inflammatory – were powering the headlong rush of the stones. Ria also sensed an intense pattern of mental concentration linking them with Brindle and saw that although they were the source of the power it was he alone who was directing and controlling it.

‘Where did the stones come from?’ she asked him. ‘How did you get them here?’

‘They’re magic stones,’ he said. ‘Our Lady of the Forest told me where to find them, and taught me the song that makes them fly. All the time you’ve been away I’ve been bringing these stones here.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m making them dance,’ Brindle said. His thought-voice was no more than a whisper: ‘Our Lady of the Forest told me they have to dance before I set them in the earth.’ An anxious look crossed his face: ‘That’s why I was busy before. I hope you understand.’

‘But you’ve got time to talk to me now?’

The rhythm of the chant was rising towards a crescendo. ‘The dance is finished,’ said Brindle. He stretched his hands above his head and thrust them down, pointing his index fingers to the ground. The chant stopped and the whirling of the circles ceased. For an instant the
fifty-eight stones hung poised in absolute silence and stillness. Then, with a tremendous crash, they plunged down, driving themselves like huge spears hip deep in the floor of the Cave of Visions. Not all pointed straight up, some were skewed at crazy angles, but within heartbeats they became still and the cracked earth out of which they jutted like giant teeth seemed to harden to rock around them, encasing them rigidly in place.

‘Come on,’ said Brindle. Glowing with pride and satisfaction, he took Ria’s hand and led her on a slow walk around each of the three concentric circles of standing stones. From time to time he would stop and place his hands or his forehead against one. Twice – seemingly fruitlessly – he threw his shoulder against stones as though trying to force them into new positions. Finally he brought her back to the edge of the inner ring of eight white megaliths and directed her attention towards the centre of the circle where they’d stood before. ‘Now I’ve set the stones in the earth all their power should be channelled here,’ he said.

He didn’t sound very sure of himself.

Ria peered in: ‘I don’t see anything,’ she said.

She took a step forward.

Nothing.

Another step.

WHOOSH!

She was falling through a tunnel of light.

When she spilled out onto a hillside under the twin suns of the spirit world, the blue woman was waiting for her, wearing a tunic of some strange supple material that gleamed like fire.