Chapter 12
We were still standing near a stone like that in the Plain of Delight, but the sky above was now the deep blue and purple of late twilight, and the ground below our feet was rocky and covered in a light layer of snow. The air was noticeably chillier, and I was glad of my coat for the first time since leaving my shop. The detectives looked uncomfortably cold.
Huge mountains reared up from the rocks near us, with no foothills to break the transition from the plain. Through the evening gloom I could make out the shape of a massive dark stone fortification looming partway up the mountain nearest us, its outer curtain wall squat and imposing. There was a narrow stair cut into the rock leading to a gate high above us. I had never before seen the Black Fortress of the Tuatha, but there could be no doubt about the nature of that structure. It oozed menace from its perch on the stony slope.
Detective Connors craned her neck to look up at the fortress. “That’s where we’re going?” I heard a dubious note in her voice.
“Aye,” Aengus answered, his voice rumbling in the cold air. “The stair is treacherous, as befits the only approach to an impregnable fortress. Many of those imprisoned within the walls have friends who would free them. The Morrigan do what they can to ensure such efforts remain impossible.”
With that he led the way to the base of the stair and began the ascent. I gestured for the detectives to follow, then took up the rearguard to ensure they did not slip or falter, and to protect us from attack from behind. We were still within Sidhe, but there is no such thing as a safe place for humans in the Otherworld. I kept a watch out for anything out of place, as I trusted Aengus to do up front.
The climb took about forty-five minutes, just putting one foot in front of the other. The snow got deeper as we climbed higher, making the rocky steps more treacherous. Detective Lajoie slipped once, but caught himself before falling, and from then on everyone set their feet down carefully. We made it to the top without further incident and rested for a moment on the narrow flat plaza before the great bronze gate. My legs were burning. It had been a long time since I’d walked up stairs for forty-five minutes straight. At least I didn’t look as cold and miserable as my companions. The petite Detective Connors’s lips were turning blue.
Once we humans had caught our breath, Aengus picked up a small hammer hanging beside the gate and struck the brass bell next to it once. It rang out with a high even tone that split the otherwise silent evening. As the echoes faded away, the gate swung open and a tall figure in a black-feathered cloak strode slowly out toward us. Nemain had a mass of wild dark curls framing her pale face. Like her sister, her beauty was cold and treacherous—she had a reputation for driving men mad. Her lips curled in a faint smile as she greeted Aengus.
“Welcome, dearest cousin. It is a pleasure to see you return to this world.” She spoke in English, presumably for our benefit. Her voice was deeper than I’d expected from her slight frame.
He nodded, but she turned to me before he could reply, and her smile was replaced by seriousness.
“Sorcerer Quinn. You have been granted access to the Dún Dubh by bargain with the High King. Few sorcerers have been within these walls, and no ordinary humans have ever been granted that privilege. Your bargain grants you an audience with the being known as the Avartagh, who has been imprisoned for crimes committed in violation of the Treaty of Tara and for experimentations with forbidden magic. Once you are within the Fortress, you and your fellow mortals are to speak with no one other than myself, your companions, or the Avartagh himself. You are to remain only within the audience chamber to which I lead you. I will remain in the chamber during your audience—should you require anything, simply ask and it shall be provided. Do not, however, attempt to leave the chamber or venture into any other part of the Fortress. Any such action will be construed as an attempt to free the prisoners and shall be dealt with accordingly. Your safe passage is guaranteed by the countenance of Lugh, provided you obey these rules exactly as I have specified them to you. Do you have any questions?”
I looked at my companions, one eyebrow raised. Both shook their heads.
“No,” Detective Lajoie answered, “that’s pretty straightforward. Just like any other prison interview. But with Faeries.”
His partner smiled wryly at that, her amusement warring with her obvious discomfort at being so close to a second sister of the Morrigan in the space of an hour.
I turned back to her. “No, Lady Nemain. We will obey your instructions and depart as soon as we have the information we need.”
Her faint smile returned as she nodded, then turned without another word and led the way into the fortress. With a shrug of my shoulders, my companions and I followed her into the darkness.
She led us through winding halls dimly lit by evenly spaced lamps. The only sound was the echo of our footsteps. We came to a stop before a solid wooden door, unadorned with any marking, exactly like dozens of others we had passed.
“Within here is the Avartagh,” she said facing the door. “His cell is separated from the audience chamber by bonds he cannot break—some you can see plainly; others you, Sorcerer, may be able to sense; and still others that only the Fae may know. You have no need to fear his power while in these walls. But he is a trickster. Listen carefully to what he says. Pay attention to the words as well as their intent. And do not trust anything that issues from his lips, for his mind is twisted and devious, and his entire being is malevolent.” She paused. “Are you ready to enter?”
I looked at the detectives again. The fortress was heated, so they seemed far less miserable than they had outside the gate. Detective Connors looked nervous, but she met my gaze evenly and I saw the strength of her purpose. Next to her, her partner’s expression was determined. This was their first chance to interview a potentially relevant witness in the case. Even if it wouldn’t go in the file, we had come all this way because it was our only real chance at a lead before the killer struck again.
They were as ready as they would ever be. I nodded, then remembered Nemain was facing the door and couldn’t see me. I started to answer aloud, but before I even opened my mouth, she touched the door and the wood melted away into nothingness. She stepped back and gestured for us to enter.
The room was lit by lamps identical to those in the corridor. There was no place to sit, no table, nothing but an open space between the doorway and a golden line etched in the floor. On the far side of that line, there was another open space and a stone shelf about four feet deep running the width of the room, upon which a figure lay sleeping. Once all five of us were inside the room, the door faded back into existence behind us. The only other decoration in the room was a small brass bell mounted on the wall next to the door, with a matching hammer hanging next to it. I guessed that was to get Nemain’s attention were she not with us. Or perhaps for her to summon assistance if necessary. I certainly hoped it wouldn’t be.
For a minute or two, nobody spoke. Nemain just stood near the door with her arms crossed. The silence was finally broken not by us, but by the figure lying on the shelf.
“Aren’t you going to say hello, Sorcerer?” he said in High Taranic, his voice raspy as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. He hadn’t moved beyond speaking, still stretched out on the shelf with his hands on his chest.
“Do you know who I am?” I replied after a moment’s consideration.
“English, then? Very well. A boring language.”
I wasn’t surprised he spoke with a perfect Oxford accent despite having been in prison since well before Shakespeare’s time. Those were quite probably the first English words this particular creature had ever spoken—modern English, at least—but he would be fluent anyway. Considering the effort I’d put into learning languages over the past two centuries, it was annoying that he could speak English with nary a second thought. But it was convenient at the moment, at least, because it meant I wouldn’t have to translate for the detectives.
As for the accent, that just seemed like the kind of pretentious affectation a being such as this would take.
“Boring, perhaps, but it’s the one everyone present speaks. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” he replied, still without moving. “You are the Sorcerer Thomas Quinn. Your father is the reigning King of the Arcane Court. Your mother is his Lord Marshal. You participated in the Shattering of Krakatoa and witnessed both the Predations of the Djinn and the Tear of the Gods. You killed the Last Dragon at Tunguska. You bathed the Fields of Fire in the blood of your enemies during the Shadow War, so much blood that Lord Kigatilik himself recoiled in fear.”
At this he finally moved, swinging his legs off the shelf and sitting up, looking straight into my eyes. Thin silver chains lightly rattled at his wrists and ankles as he moved. They led back to a small ring set in the stone.
“A creature after my own heart, you. You’ve killed at least as many innocents as I. Probably more. Of course, it has been disappointing since, wasting your time in your ridiculous shop, trying to drink yourself and your shame into oblivion. That will not work, you know. You are who you are, and no amount of shame or whisky will change that.”
My blood ran cold. All of that had occurred in the centuries he had been sitting in this cell, which meant either he was somehow in contact with the world outside, or he had reached into my mind and extracted the deepest, darkest secrets of my memory in the few minutes since I’d entered the room. Either possibility I hadn’t counted on beforehand, and both were troubling.
The detectives were looking at me funny. I hadn’t told them any specifics of my past. This was all very interesting to them, I was sure, but I didn’t like that they’d found out this way. Even Nemain was looking at me differently, more measuringly. Before I could respond, however, the prisoner had already moved on, switching his gaze to Detective Lajoie.
“As for the police officers, I know you, too. Henri Lajoie, from Haiti, a land of dark magic. Your grandfather was a powerful necromancer, a man I would have respected. But you? I have no respect for cowards and sexual deviants. And that is what you are, you know. You became a police officer because of what happened to your family, but that’s just paper over the wound. When the actual moment came, you froze in terror, doing nothing. Your family died because deep down in your heart of hearts you’re a coward, and no medal, no valor commendation, will ever change that fact. You know that, don’t you? That’s probably the reason for your perversions, too. Disgusting.” The Avartagh’s face was now twisted in a cruel smile, like a boy pulling the wings off a butterfly as it struggled in his hand.
I saw the big man’s expression. I saw the pain and the fear and the anger all warring for supremacy on his features. I hadn’t known any of that. But it was petty and sick, what the Avartagh was doing. I was certain now he was reading our memories, extracting our greatest shames and fears and playing them out for the group as a twisted game.
Nemain had warned us he was malevolent and insane. She’d also claimed that his power would not extend into the audience chamber—apparently there was something she’d forgotten to mention. Although it was possible this particular skill just didn’t apply to the Fae, so she honestly didn’t know. Whichever it was, the bastard focused on Detective Connors next. I wanted to stop him, but I had no power here, and I knew he would just ignore my interruption.
“And last—and most certainly least—we have Adrienne Connors. Connors, who bears the name of one of the greatest kings of men, a man who was a worthy enemy, but herself is nobody. Nothing special has ever happened to you, has it, Adrienne? Your partner may be a coward, but at least he seeks to right his wrongs. You have no wrongs to right, because your life has been pointless and sheltered and completely void of meaning. You’ll make no mark on your world. Would anyone even notice if you’d never existed? I’m honestly impressed by the depth of your insignificance, my dear. It is—” He would have continued, I was sure, but he was interrupted.
“Enough.” Nemain’s clear voice chopped across the line of the Avartagh’s spiteful taunting like an axe. That’s all she said. She hadn’t moved, her facial expression had returned to the stony nonexpression she’d shown before the taunting had begun. But it shut the creature up. He sat there with that same sadistic smile, but at least he was no longer talking.
“Of course, Lady of War,” he replied with a pleasant tone. “As it pleases you.”
He didn’t look evil, at least not at first glance. He looked almost like any of the hundreds of Aes Sidhe we had seen at Lughnasadh: tall and fair-skinned, with dark hair down to his shoulders. His eyes were different, though. They were black, all the way through. No whites, no pupils. Just black. With his thin lips curled into his sneering smile, I could see his teeth were filed into points. He wore a simple linen tunic and breeches. Prison garb, I supposed, as he certainly seemed the ostentatious type given his druthers.
After a long, tense few minutes, I spoke again, quietly. “Do you know why we have come here?”
He cocked his head and stared at me intently. “Do you?”
Detective Lajoie stepped in before I could reply. “What do you know about a ritual murder in Philadelphia five nights ago, and a second last night?”
“Five nights?” The Avartagh turned to him and grinned. “Five of whose nights? You are in the Otherworld. The revolutions of the mortal world have little meaning here.”
He was right. Time passed differently in the mortal world than in the Otherworld—that’s why so many fairy tales included time jumps, like Rip Van Winkle’s twenty-year nap. I’d already considered that for our current visit; since we’d be returning to the city the same way we came, almost no time at all would have passed on my clocks back home.
“Five human nights,” Detective Connors stepped in. “Five nights ago in Philadelphia, someone or something skinned a man alive and butchered him, using his blood to write all over the walls. Last night, the same happened again. What do you know about it?”
He looked down and laughed, a slightly hysterical giggle.
“What would I know about that? I have been stuck in here for more than five hundred years in your world. Sounds delightful, though.” He giggled again.
“It sounds like one of your greatest hits, you mean,” she replied.
I had to give it to her, even though she and her partner had been following me for the past couple hours like scared lost puppies, once they got into the interview, they were holding their own. She wasn’t backing down an inch. Maybe she just had something to prove, after the Avartagh’s fucked-up little game.
He looked up, locking onto her eyes. The laughter and the sick smile were gone. He radiated hatred.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Armorica. I came so close to ending your race’s dominance over my people, breaking the pathetic humans’ power, restoring the glory of the Fae. If the Arcanum had remained ignorant only another week, I would have completed the rite and ridded the Fae of humanity’s scourge entire.” He almost snarled the last words.
“What is the Tamesis?” I asked, quietly.
The Avartagh snorted. “Do you think it is that easy? You come to my cell, you irritate me, and this one” he nodded at Nemain, “orders me around in my own mind, then I am supposed to answer every one of your questions like a good little boy? What do you think I am, Sorcerer? It is you who are the child here, not I.”
“What is the Tamesis?” I repeated.
He shook his head. “No, Sorcerer, it is not that easy. Even were I inclined to tell you, which I am most certainly not when that will give you ever so much more grief, I could not. The Tamesis is nothing that can be explained. It must be experienced. It is visceral, primal. Words can only be a hollow reflection of its power. Shall I try to explain? No, I think not. Certainly not so long as you keep asking the wrong questions.”
We had him. I could sense it. He wanted to explain, in his arrogance he was dying to brag about his accomplishments, how close he was to success. He wanted to taunt us. He wasn’t stupid; he knew revealing such details would give us an advantage. And while he may not be involved in this case at all, he certainly had no desire to help us. But he was also unstable, and if pushed just right…
“Very well,” I said. “What is the relationship of the ritual killing to the Tamesis?”
“Bah,” he snorted. “You already know the answer to that.”
Detective Lajoie looked at me with a question in his face.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I do. It’s to build power, to channel energy for the final rite. That’s why there must be pain and terror, why there must be blood.”
The Avartagh smiled grimly, showing all of his sharpened teeth. “Very good, Sorcerer. You are not completely stupid after all.”
I tried a slightly different tack. “How much power is required for the Tamesis?”
“Lots.” He scowled. “Lots and lots. More than you can dream. But you have never killed a sorcerer for his power, so you do not realize how much energy that represents. It is a moot question if you do not know the measuring units.”
Detective Connors jumped in with the obvious response. “How many sorcerers would one have to kill to have enough power for the Tamesis?”
He smiled again, like a schoolboy showing off an achievement to his parents. “Not many, child. Not many at all. I was almost there before the Arcanum arrived.” He looked away, as if remembering. He looked very pleased with himself.
“Does that power have to be collected in a specific manner?” Detective Lajoie asked.
The monster nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Complicated. Very complicated. Patterns within patterns, hidden within the cycles of the two worlds. That is the most difficult part. Everything must be just so, all the variables accounted for to keep the balance just right.”
“What is the Tamesis?” Detective Connors pressed. I mentally smiled, though my face remained expressionless. Keeping up the pressure. This was their element, and Faeries and gods be damned—they had a job to do.
“The Darkness, of course.” The Avartagh was scowling again. “It’s right there in the name.”
Aengus spoke up, for the first time since we’d entered the room. “How did you develop the rituals?”
“Dear cousin!” Those pointed teeth gleamed in an evil smile once again. “I thought you would never ask!” He giggled. “It was difficult. Most difficult. I cannot take all the credit—I needed a push to see the critical point in the Great Cycle. But even with such assistance, it required a lot of experimenting over the centuries. A lot of very enjoyable experimenting. Enjoyable for me, at least. I do not think the subjects enjoyed it very much at all. But does the master of the slaughterhouse worry about the feelings of the cattle?” He paused, another hysterical giggle escaping.
“It was rather annoying, being constantly interrupted in my research by damned sorcerers and you lot of Tuatha Dé. They thought they killed me. Twelve times. Twelve times they thought they killed me. It was easy getting away, but every time set me back centuries of effort. That made me mad.”
His face twisted into a sneer. “But I figured it out, despite the setbacks, despite the interruptions. I figured out how to summon the Tamesis. How to breach the walls. How to bring the Darkness that would destroy the power of the Arcanum and rid our people of their meddling forever.” He slipped into a fit of high-pitched giggling for a long moment, as if remembering something funny, before trailing off and scowling angrily.
“But before I could finish the rites the Arcanum came to kill me yet again. They failed, of course. They always failed. But they killed my assistants and spoiled the blood channels. All of that energy, wasted.” He was breathing heavily, his nostrils flared, his eyes wide and insane. “And then you damned Tuatha Dé and your pet Fianna gave me no rest, no chance to begin again. And here I am, in chains and a stone room, sealed in by unbroken gold and the dreams of a sleeping giant. And there you are, worried about the Tamesis anyway.” He stopped, controlled his breath. He pressed his lips together and looked away.
“Why did you need a sorcerer to help you?” Aengus asked calmly, his eyebrows raised.
He looked angry. “Now you just want all the answers?”
“If it was so complicated and took so long to figure out, how could someone else know of your rituals?” I asked.
He didn’t answer at first. He lay back down, exactly as he was when we first entered the room, supine on the shelf with his hands on his chest, fingers interlocked, and his eyes closed. Finally, after a long moment, he spoke. “That, Sorcerer, is a very good question.”
“Who is the Faerie involved in the current ritual?” I asked. No answer.
“Who helped you find this critical point in the Great Cycle?” I tried again.
I waited, but he said no more.
Aengus sighed. “He is tired of the game. We shall get nothing further from him.”
He looked to Nemain, who nodded and waved a hand, the door fading back into existence. She gestured for us to precede her out into the corridor.