The Devil's Apprentice Page 24

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Pirates of the Inland Sea

  London, twenty-first century

  ‘WELL,’ SAID GAVIN, his tone bordering on sneer, ‘how was your Borgia prince?’

  Pen was recovering from the shock of transition while Gavin vented pent-up anxiety in general nastiness and Jinx reviewed their strategy.

  ‘The wishing stone seems to have worked,’ she said, ‘and you did come back, in the end, but you were gone for ages, and–’

  ‘Cesare made a deal with Azmordis,’ Pen said. ‘I saw him. I saw the Devil...’

  ‘What did he look like?’ Jinx demanded.

  ‘He spoke through a mask,’ Pen explained. ‘It lit up with this sickly glow, and the lips moved. He told Cesare... he told him to kill me.’

  ‘And did he?’ said Gavin. ‘I mean, did he try? Obviously, he didn’t actually manage to–’

  ‘He tried.’ Pen went very quiet. She had wanted to see the prince again, to feel the nearness and the danger of him, to know herself his confidante, utile... When Azmordis gave the order, Cesare had barely hesitated. ‘The Teeth saved me,’ she went on at last. ‘They jumped out and bit him on the neck. They were brilliant.’

  ‘We’re vampire teeth!’ The dentures poked out of Pen’s pocket. ‘We can do time travel – we can bite the whole world!’

  ‘Perhaps we should give them a bone,’ said Gavin.

  ‘We’re not a dog. We want blood!’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ Pen admonished.

  ‘This beats living in the mouth of a corpse! We want freedom – freedom and the right to bite!’

  ‘I knew they’d be useful,’ said Jinx, slightly annoyed that no one had remembered taking the Teeth was her idea.

  No one remembered it now.

  ‘We should go back,’ said Pen. ‘It must be nearly lunchtime.’

  ‘Teatime,’ said Gavin. ‘Or later. Your head’s still upside down.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘And we’re not going back yet. I want to find that girl...’

  EVENTUALLY, THE ARGUMENT ran out. Pen was too weary to persist – she thought there must be some sort of time lag involved, like jet lag only worse – and Jinx, who felt she was at the back of the queue for time travel, decided she simply wanted Gavin to get on with it. Then there was another dispute about which door to try in search of the witch-girl.

  ‘We don’t want to try the broom cupboard again,’ said Pen. ‘I’m monstered out.’

  ‘What about upstairs?’ Jinx suggested.

  ‘We should stick with the magical dimensions,’ Gavin said. ‘Then I won’t lose my memory.’

  ‘You can’t rely on that,’ said Jinx. ‘Where there are people, there’s history. Anyhow, magic and history cross over, that’s what Stiltz said.’

  Gavin ignored her, possibly because he had no comeback.

  ‘If this was a normal house, the kitchen would be there,’ he went on, indicating the back of the hallway, where three steps led down to a door at lower ground level. ‘I’m going for the one next to it – should be the utility room.’

  ‘It might be another broom cupboard,’ said Pen. ‘The unobtrusive doors are always the worst.’

  ‘I’m going to try, anyway.’

  Gavin stood facing the door, rubbing the stone. He didn’t know the girl’s name but her face was very clear in his mind and when he said the witch-girl he was almost sure that would be enough. Presently, the stone began to glow and he opened the door...

  He was looking into a large hall or temple, the kind with vaulting, and pillars, and gloom, the shadowy gloom of a cool place on a hot day. At the far end, beyond the pillars, he could see the sun’s rays slanting in from somewhere, casting an oblique pattern across the floor. The gloom gleamed faintly with marble, and glimmered dimly with gold, as if there might be friezes along the walls, suggested rather than seen in the semi-dark. There was no one about.

  Except the guard.

  Gavin saw him at the last minute, just as he was stepping through the door. A man in a tunic and breastplate standing behind the sunbeams, peeing quietly into a corner. Gavin drew back at once.

  Pen said: ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Jinx nodded. ‘Anyone would think it was a multi-storey car-park.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Gavin hissed. And: ‘What do I do about him?’

  ‘Your scenario,’ said Jinx. ‘Your problem.’

  ‘Hit him over the head?’ offered Pen.

  ‘He’s wearing a helmet!’

  ‘Stab him in the back,’ said Jinx.

  ‘He’s got body armour! I suppose I could use the stun-gun...’

  ‘You can’t go around stabbing people in the back,’ Pen said, shocked, ‘just because they’re in the way. We’re not psychopaths.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Jinx.

  The guard finished his pee, picked up a spear which he had propped against the wall, and disappeared into the sunlight. Gavin returned the stun-gun to his rucksack on a sigh of relief.

  ‘Take care,’ said Pen as he crossed the threshold, not casually as you say it every day but in the voice of one who meant it. ‘Remember to come back here.’

  Gavin glanced over his shoulder by way of affirmation and headed for the unseen exit. They saw him for an instant caught in the sunlight, squinting at the sudden dazzle. Then he was gone.

  Pen thought: ‘What if he doesn’t come back?’ and felt the inevitable squeeze of panic at her heart. She knew it was pointless – it was even unfair – she had to share the risk, as well as the responsibility. But... Gavin was braver than her, rarely cautious or prudent, sometimes reckless. Where she would dodge trouble, he might walk straight into it, if only because he wasn’t looking where he was going. And she didn’t like this fixation with the witch-girl at all...

  Jinx said: ‘All this waiting is getting boring. We should’ve brought some sandwiches,’ and switched on her iPod.

  Beyond the Doors

  Colchis, sometime in the mythical past

  THERE WERE PEOPLE outside, a crowd of about thirty, grouped in an arc around the throne. Gavin would have stood out in his barbarian gear if anyone had been looking at him, but all their attention was fixed on the killing ground in front. It was a wide circular depression, like an arena, grass-grown and with no enclosing walls, only the guards standing at intervals leaning on their leaf-bladed spears. His fellow pirates were huddled in the middle. They looked weary, unshaven, shabby from the long voyage, dressed in rags of assorted clothing, moulting skins, oddments of dented armour. Very few had kept their helmets: Asterion, the giant Obelaos, the twins. Jaeson was bare-headed, his dark hair uncut and unkempt, torn leggings peeling from his thighs, his arms webbed with twisted sinews and jagged scars. His pretty-boy face with its strangely wistful mouth was set into hardness and lines. Like the others, Gavin loved him despite his erratic moods, his dubious leadership skills, his bizarre obsessions. They had followed him because of the magic word treasure, the legendary Golden Ram of the East, and now here they were at the end of the world, in the Land Beyond the Blue, trapped by the machinations of an evil king, daring the challenge none had survived. Jaeson stood to the fore, at the head of his crew, his rust-bitten sword held loosely in his grasp. First to face danger, first to face death, as always...

  Well, as sometimes. He had always been first to the feast, first to the women, if not first to the fight...

  And the backup plan had failed. The underground passage had caved in, killing all Gavin’s band except Penthesilé the Amazon and Jacynthe the peasant girl, who had agreed for a handful of coins to be their guide. Gavin had left them guarding the entrance to the passage in case there was any chance of escape; Jacynthe had said there was another exit, this side of the cave-in, not so close to the beach but far enough from palace and temple. Gavin hoped desperately she would not betray them.

  Now, he could do nothing except watch.

  He glanced at the throne: the king was leaning forward, hung
ry for slaughter, his profile all nose, like the beak of some voracious bird. His very name had the sound of a bird’s scream: Æeetes. At his feet sat his young son in the care of a slave – a boy of five or six years old, fidgeting because he was bored.

  The High Priestess stood apart, some way to his left. There were no other women present and somehow that singleness emphasised both her power and her pride. Her black hair was piled into a cone and bound with a twist of gold; more gold dangled from her ears and encircled her throat and wrists. Her small round breasts were naked, supported in gilded lily-cups, the exposed nipples painted red as blood. The silk of her dress poured over her nether limbs like clinging oil. Jaeson’s gaze never left her, though whether in desire or hate Gavin could not tell. In that moment, he didn’t care. The others had come for the treasure. He had come for the girl.

  He had seen her long ago, on the beach with the Dromedon. The villagers had elected her for the sacrifice because of her dark skin and African eyes – the alien in their midst. What spells she had used to becharm the monster Gavin did not know, but they were strong spells, stronger than the ancient ritual which had held the creature in thrall for two decades, limiting it to devouring one in lieu of many. Gavin had peered from behind a boulder as the beast ate its fill, driven by both greed and vengeance, killing any that remained when its appetite was sated, while the girl shuddered and shuddered with the horror and the pleasure of it. He had been overlooked somehow, though she had seen him, he was sure of it. But he was of her race, the people of the far south – of the rose-coloured desert and the city of domes – the two of them astray in the unfamiliar realms north of the Inland Sea. The Dromedon had borne her far away, but he had vowed to find her, take her home, teach her gentleness again. He sensed that despite the lessons she had learned in survival and cruelty, she still had the warm heart of her desert kin...

  She did not look at him, not yet. The king gave her the signal, and she struck the gong three times.

  The Warriors of the Teeth filed onto the field. They were shorter than the barbarians but very thickset, armoured in overlapping metal scales like dragonskin, their cheek- and nose-guards closing over their faces so they had no visible features, no individual identity. They carried swords and javelins, and each man wore a dragon’s tooth on a thong around his neck, which was supposed to make him invulnerable. They were a hundred and more; Jaeson’s crew numbered twenty-five.

  The Warriors threw their javelins. Those pirates who had shields raised them, but a few of the weapons got through: one man fell. Gavin couldn’t see who it was. Then the fighting was hand-to-hand, and everything was confusion.

  In any battle against overwhelming odds it is usual for the weaker side to draw together into a tight knot, then their backs are protected and only so many of their opponents can confront them at any one time. But Jaeson had evidently decided to ignore this rule, relying on his men’s ability not just to defend but to attack, pushing the fight towards the perimeter of the killing ground. The Warriors of the Teeth were highly trained but short on actual combat practice; Jaeson’s crew had seen ambush and skirmish beyond count throughout the voyage. They were accustomed to fighting for their lives – to bad odds – to surviving if not winning. And it was quickly clear that the dragon’s teeth of invulnerability should have been returned to the dragon for a refund. The linked-plate armour left men exposed at the throat and underarm, and the pirates had the advantage in height and reach. Many picked up the discarded javelins; Obelaos thrust one into an opponent straight through the armour-plating, driving the metal scales deep into his chest. Others slashed at legs and arms – Jaeson took off a man’s head with a blow of such force it flew through the air and rolled to the feet of the king. The child bent to pick it up and cried when the slave pulled him away.

  The chaos spread as the spectators found themselves sucked into the combat. Some of the Warriors seemed to be fighting each other: one threw off the helm which restricted his vision and Gavin saw it was a member of the crew who was supposed to have remained on board ship – his identity had been concealed by the face-guards. Jaeson must have summoned the extra men secretly, but only inside information would have allowed them to infiltrate the enemy. The Priestess, Gavin guessed, recalling how Jaeson had spoken to her, long and soft, after the banquet the previous night...

  He had no sword – it had been lost in the cave-in – but he snatched one from a startled guard, kicking his legs from under him, then skirted round the back of the crowd. He was aiming for the girl. Jaeson’s push into the audience had paid off: although in theory it increased the number of his opponents they were seized with panic – soldier and civilian fell over one another – only the pirates knew who to kill. But no one touched the Priestess. She stood unmoving, statue-still in the midst of the fight, frozen not with fear – Gavin was sure it wasn’t fear – but perhaps with some inner intensity. Her gaze found him before he reached her, and for the first time her expression changed.

  ‘I’ve seen you before,’ she said. ‘You were on the beach.’

  ‘Come on!’ Gavin grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the mêlée. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘Why aren’t you dead? They were all killed – all of them...’

  ‘You let me live.’

  ‘No... I let no one live...’

  ‘Come on!’

  A guard got in the way – Gavin wrenched his spear-butt aside and stabbed without thinking. His ribs twinged painfully from an old injury, but it barely slowed him down. The man folded to his knees, clutching a wound in his thigh. Somewhere deep inside himself Gavin was horrified – at his own reflexes, at the swift, careless action which had injured and might have taken a life – but that was ridiculous, he had been in a hundred fights, killed men he couldn’t even remember. They all had. On Lemnos he had slain a woman who tried to poison his seafood stew. You had blood on your hands because that was the right place for it – otherwise the blood would be on your breast or your throat, and it would be your own.

  He caught the girl’s wrist again, dragging her into a run. And then they were in the temple, and the din of battle fled far away, and she stood in the shadows staring at him as if her gaze would devour his face.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You were on the beach. You were one of them, one of the ones who condemned me.’

  ‘I never condemned you,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t know what was happening. I was just... a traveller, passing through...’

  But she barely seemed to hear him. ‘They chose me, because I wasn’t like them. They chained me like a goat for the sacrifice – only I escaped, and the Dromedon brought me here, and the king made me his daughter, the High Priestess – though it was not a daughter’s service he wanted. But you... you are of my people, my blood...’ She laid a hand on his arm, skin to skin, touch to touch. He was far darker, but he knew they were akin. ‘Jaeson wants the Golden Ram. He’s greedy; I understand greed. I understand all the vices. What do you want?’

  ‘I want to take you home,’ he said.

  At the far end of the temple the door stood ajar; he could see Penthesilé and Jacynthe waiting on the other side. Somehow, he knew that through that door was not just escape but safety, a passage where no pursuing foe could follow.

  ‘This way...’

  And then the fight broke into the temple as three Warriors burst through the entrance, crying that he was abducting the High Priestess. Jaeson was behind them, but his sword was notched and they were too many for him. Gavin swung round to defend himself, lunging, dodging, slicing. His sword clashed on metal, drew back, found flesh – there was an awkward lurch as the thrust went home. Jaeson had killed another at close range, ramming the broken blade up into his belly, seizing a spear from the dying man to confront the third. At his back, Gavin was half aware of the witch-girl’s whisper, fearful now – yes, fearful – though not of the Warriors.

  ‘Not that way... no... not that door! I passed that door once before – never again, no, never a
gain...’

  Footsteps, retreating. Penthesilé’s shout of protest, abruptly cut off. The soft final thud as a door slammed shut...

  Gavin wheeled, but it was too late. Penthesilé – Jacynthe – the door itself – had vanished. The wall of the temple was blank impassable stone.

  He was trapped.

  London, twenty-first century

  ‘HE’S COMING BACK!’ Pen tugged at Jinx’s earphones, forcing her to switch to the real world. To one of the real worlds, anyway.

  ‘He’s found her,’ Pen went on. ‘That’s the girl on the sea-monster – I’m sure it is.’

  ‘She’s wearing an awful lot of bling,’ Jinx said disparagingly. ‘Ancient Greek chav.’

  They saw her talking earnestly to Gavin – saw him glance their way.

  Pen said: ‘I suppose he’s persuading her to come with him.’ She didn’t sound particularly thrilled.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jinx. She didn’t try.

  Then the Warriors spilled into the temple with Jaeson in pursuit – Pen gave a gasp of horror which changed to awe as Gavin launched himself on the foremost assailant, wielding his borrowed sword with unnerving expertise. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Staying alive,’ said Jinx. ‘He’s been absorbed – otherwise he wouldn’t have a prayer.’

  The witch-girl was walking towards them, staring at the doorway with terror-widened eyes. Her face was as pale as her complexion would allow, giving it a sort of greenish hue. One hand stretched out as if to ward off something.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pen said, realising belatedly that the other girl probably didn’t understand her. ‘We’re here to help you...’

  Unlike most people beyond the doors, the girl actually seemed to see through, into the calm alien environment of Bygone House. But whatever associations it had did nothing to reassure her. Pen and Jinx both remembered Stiltz talking about the boy who starved because he would not pass another door...