The Defiler (25 page)

Ukko clutched at Sláine's arm. He stared at the creature, unable to take his eyes from its elongated, serpent-like head and its yellow eyes as the beast swooped low again, almost close enough to touch. "Well knock me over with an menhir. Is that a... ?" he couldn't say the word.

Leanan chuckled. "It is the Knucker, Finvarra's war mount, though now the beast is more of a pet. I doubt it even remembers how to hunt."

"I don't," said Ukko, remembering the creature's teeth and the feral hunger in its eyes. "Makes you feel like a rat staring at a cat."

The Knucker landed with surprising grace, settling beside the water's edge. Two figures stood beside the huge wyrm, while a third sat on the jetty, engrossed in the hidden secrets of the black water. Myrrdin was recognisable even from a distance, the tattoos marring his flesh seeming to shift to the whim of the wind, becoming dark smears. He approached the beast, laying a hand on its ridged brow. Beside him was the Sidhe woman, Modron. Like her sisters, the woman's beauty was unnerving, though there was a sadness about her that was missing in the other Sidhe, her skin more luminous and more waxen at the same time, as though she harboured a sickness within her limbs, Ukko thought. He could not help but wonder if they kept their ugly sister locked away in some dark room inside the Glass House. The third figure, he assumed, was the Wounded King, himself, although Finvarra did not look particularly regal, sat cross-legged on the wooden jetty, a fishing pole braced beside him.

Sláine strode purposefully towards the jetty. Rather than struggle to match his pace, Ukko gave up trying. He kicked stones, dragging his feet, none too eager to get too close to the enormous Knucker.

TEN

"So this is the fabled Defiler?" the Wounded King mused. "I must admit after all this time I was expecting something more."

"More what?" Sláine said, obviously irritated by the crippled king's condescending tone.

"Just
more
," Finvarra said.

Ukko watched his friend. Sláine was looking at the man, gauging him as he would any foe on the battlefield. Ukko could read his face as easily as he could read Feg's Ragnarok book, meaning he knew well enough when to duck, when to shut his mouth and when to run.

Finvarra favoured his left side; it caused his spine to curve slightly to the right to reduce pressure on whatever wounds he bore beneath his simple homespun tunic. A small stain had already begun to seep through the bandages. His hair was close-cropped, snow-white, his face gaunt, the bones emphasised beneath loose-fitting skin. His cheek bones were proud, angular, his nose aquiline. A scar sliced through the white of his thin beard, from high on the cheek into the cleft of his chin. In the dark shadows, his eyes were cruel, the only real clue to the Wounded King's resolve and a testament to his immortal suffering. Despite his slight frame, Ukko did not doubt for a moment that Finvarra would make a formidable opponent.

Seeing his scrutiny, Finvarra said: "It ought to have been a fatal wound - but for the druid it would have been, I suspect. But in this place it will not whiten, just as my flesh will not succumb to death. So I bleed, but that is a small cost for living. I trust you have found my house to your liking, little man?"

"You have something of mine, old man," Sláine interrupted, cutting across the pleasantries. "I would have it back so that I might be on my way."

The Wounded King turned a disapproving eye on the warrior. His lip curled into sneer "Would you indeed? First I suggest you remember that pleasantries cost nothing. I asked your companion if he had enjoyed the hospitality of my house. Do the little fellow the decency of allowing him the chance to reply." He turned back to Ukko, brushing off Sláine's obvious anger. "So tell me, good dwarf, has my house lived up to your every desire? And remember, it is customary for the guest to at least lie and pretend their host has been gracious even if he has been little more than a gaoler."

"Would that every gaol I've been thrown in was as comfortable, and the guards so, ahh, accommodating, your kingness."

"Very good, very good, now on to less pleasant things." Finvarra turned back to Sláine. "Now, young man, what is it you believe I have that belongs to you? And while we are talking about impossible things, what brings you to believe you can ever leave this place? Did Sister Leanan not tell you that you are bound here now, just as I am, alive at the whim of a geas placed on this island, Ynys Afallach, by the great Myrrdin himself? With that in mind I would say you want much that you cannot have." The old man studied Sláine's face much as he had just been studied himself, weighing the warrior's worth. A slow smile spread across his thin bloodless lips. "Ah, I see you are aware of the geas. Perhaps you have even tested its limits?" he raised a curious eyebrow. "Frustrating, is it not? To be able to see freedom and not be able to reach it? Such is your life now. Still, I am sure you will learn to love it here. The sisters offer many distractions, as I am sure you have already realised. Imprisonment need not be iron masks and manacles, sometimes a captivating smile and a warm bed is enough."

"Where is my axe, old man?" Sláine said, ignoring the taunt in Finvarra's words. Ukko watched Sláine's face contort as he struggled to rein in his temper. In another place the earth itself would have responded to his anger, firing his blood, and the Wounded King would have been confronted by a monster. Here at least it was just anger.

"You have no need of it here, I assure you. No one on the island means you harm."

"Still I would have it at my side - it was my father's. Now tell me, where is it?"

Finvarra turned to the druid. "Did you teach your boy no manners, Myrrdin? Not even a please when he makes demands of his betters."

"He isn't my boy, Finvarra," Myrrdin told him. "You would do well to remember that there is a reason your people named him the Defiler."

"A threat from you? After all this time? And I thought we were friends, Lord of the Trees," the Wounded King chuckled.

"Rulers have no friends; they have allies and subjects, Finvarra. Do not be coy with your word games. You have taken things that are ours; a fragment of the Cauldron of Rebirth, the warrior's stone axe. We would have them returned."

"Would you now? That is a shame, to be honest. You took something from me, druid, something I too would have returned. Perhaps when I get that back you can have your precious things... but then again, perhaps not. This is my kingdom, druid. You would do well to remember that. The whims of your Goddess mean nothing here, and even less to me. Now, enough of this bickering. The truth is your trinkets are a part of my collection now. You remember how much I love beautiful things? Believe me, the Defiler's axe is a relic to rival even Cúchulainn's Gae Bolga and Gwyddbwyll Gweddoleu's miraculous chess board. It is a true treasure of Albion if ever there was one. And, thanks to you, I have in my possession two shards of the Cauldron of Rebirth. I would not give it up for the world. Indeed, I need only the final fragments and I can have my life restored. With it I can live again, a real life, not this half-life, trapped on this damned Isle of Glass. So as I said, I will have back what you took from me before I even entertain the thought of returning a few trinkets to you. I suggest you put all thoughts of these treasures from your mind now. Consider them the cost of your stay, if you like. Payment for the Defiler's life. The price is fair, I believe."

"Well I do not," Sláine said.

"Then that is a pity and you are a damned fool, warrior," the Wounded King said, his words heavy with malice.

Ukko had no liking for the turn the conversation was taking.

"Perhaps, but I have already decided that this place is a blessing - I can tear you limb from limb and still you won't die. I can reach in and rip out your heart, and despite all the blood and all the screaming, you won't escape the pain."

"You think to intimidate me?" Finvarra said, shaking his head in mocking disbelief.

"I don't waste my time thinking, old man."

"I can vouch for that," Ukko said, helpfully, earning withering glowers from the young Sessair, the druid and the king.

"Tell me, which would you like broken first, arm or leg? I can't promise I will make it clean. Perhaps tonight I will claw your eyes out and leave them on the stones as food for the Morrigan's crows. There are so many ways pain can be brought to a body if you take the time to be inventive."

"Indeed. Did your mother never tell you that threats are the last refuge of the coward and the blusterer?" the Wounded King asked, unconcerned by Sláine's anger. "If you want to hurt me, warrior, I suggest you get on with it before I decide to hurt you."

"Don't tempt me, old man." Sláine turned on his heel and stalked away back towards the coruscating façade of the Glass House, clearly struggling to master his temper.

Beside Finvarra the fishing pole jerked as a fish took the bait and drew the line taut in its panic. He reached over and began reeling it in. The sleek silver fish came up, hook piercing its gaping mouth and flapping gills as it sucked desperately at the air, drowning out of the water. It wriggled in Finvarra's hands as he freed it. A moment later he dropped it back into the black water.

"What is the point if you are not going to eat it?" Ukko said, nonplussed. He walked over to the edge of the jetty and peered over the side, watching the silver shadow disappear.

"Sometimes the hunt is more rewarding than the kill. When you have eternity to waste what good is an empty lake? There is a life lesson in the answer to that, dwarf. I will let you fathom it out for yourself," said Finvarra, baiting the hook once more before casting the line back into the water to begin the cycle again.

"And the fish never learn to fear your hook?"

The thought genuinely amused the old man. "Do any species? And in that damning assessment I happily include humans."

He thought of Sláine, so easily manipulated into rising to take the Wounded King's bait, and saw the truth in the old man's words. "So are you hunting us now? Is that the game you are playing?"

Finvarra brought up a handful of maggots from his bait box and crushed them in his hand until their innards oozed out between his fingers. Then he opened his hand and showed the dwarf its contents. Despite the crushing and ruination every maggot still writhed, full of life. "I think you'd make poor sport, don't you, little man? Unless it was to see how far I could toss you..."

"Oh, I think you'd be surprised."

"Very little in life surprises me now, dwarf."

"Then it is a good thing that I am very little, wouldn't you say?"

Something that the Wounded King had said stuck with Ukko:
your trinkets are a part of my collection now. You remember how much I love beautiful things.

And the important thing here wasn't that few of Sláine's things were missing, not even the shard of the broken Cauldron. Oh no, far more interesting was the fact that hidden somewhere inside the Glass House was a collection of beautiful things worth liberating.
That
was the important thing. The dwarf rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. The old man hadn't even realised he had said it, Ukko was sure. He had been so busy baiting Sláine that he hadn't for one minute considered the predilections of his audience.

Ukko smiled. "Once a thief," he said to himself. He had left Urian asleep in bed, worn out from his lusty excesses. The Sidhe was pliable, flexible and a whole lot of other "bles". He had drunk his fill, rolled over, farted and begun to snore loudly, faking unconsciousness until Urian's breathing had changed in quality to the regularly shallow rhythm of sleep, then he had snuck out of their shared room. Finvarra hadn't lied; for all its sensory delights, the place was no more than a gaol - and there hadn't been a gaol built that could hold the resourceful dwarf. She hadn't even stirred as he carefully laid the sheet back over her legs, padded across the room to his pile of clothes by the crackling fire, and dressed.

The passageways were deserted, the Glass House in the grip of what passed for night in this peculiar place.

He walked slowly along the narrow corridor, listening at every step for signs of life, but the Glass House was in deep sleep. Even the hues imbuing the walls seemed more subdued, somnambulant.

Now if I were a senile old man locked away on my own for four hundred years, where would I hide my precious knickknacks?

Think.

You've got this whole place to yourself, where would you hide the goodies?

Think.

It's not as though you'd be expecting guests, so there's no need to squirrel them away in a vault, even supposing this place has dungeons, no, you'd want them close at hand, somewhere you could visit them whenever the mood struck. So, where in this endless sprawling palace, would that be? Near your bed chamber? In a chest at the bottom of your bed? You're a king, how about near your throne room? Or up in one of the towers, where the light is always perfect?

It's about splendour,
he reasoned, following the curve of the passage to one of the many servants' stairs, and climbing them,
You possess these glorious things, these things of beauty, so you want to revel in them. That means you keep them somewhere that enhances their perfection. Somewhere the light is perfect, somewhere spectacular.

The chamber at the top of the very highest spire, with wide open windows to capture all the natural light sun and moon have to offer.

Pleased with his logic, Ukko set off looking for more stairways, always rising, higher and higher through the labyrinthine corridors of the Glass House, pausing at corners, breath caught in his throat, to listen. He felt like a character in some dumb fairy tale, disappearing into the woodland without a trail of breadcrumbs to find his way home.

More than once he found himself walking down a passageway identical to one he thought he had left behind two stairways earlier. Then he would walk to the far end of the corridor and peer out through the glass trying to get his bearings in relation to the highest tower and its crooked spire. It was an unnerving experience. Before long he was sure he was utterly lost. And still he headed upwards, following the never-ending twists and turns of the Glass House as though he were in the belly of a huge beast.