The Devil's Apprentice Read online

  ‘Quick!’ said Jinx, bracing her shoulder against the panels. ‘We need a wedge!’

  The girl made a gesture like a violent push – her lips moved on a word they couldn’t hear. Pen cried out – ‘No! No don’t...’ – but the door swung shut with such force Jinx was thrown across the hall and the crash of its closing seemed to reverberate throughout the house. Pen thrust it open again immediately –

  – and there was the temple, with pillars, but the pillars were made of jasper and the gloom was candlelit and a human sacrifice was bent backwards over the altar. Behind her, Jinx said: ‘Damn,’ and reached past, pulling the door closed.

  They stood looking at each other while the sheer awfulness of the moment sank in.

  Pen said: ‘What do we do?’ and hated her own helplessness, knowing she sounded little-girlish, pathetic, ineffectual. ‘There’s a pattern,’ she reiterated, struggling to pull herself together. ‘This door must be temples. If we keep opening it, maybe we’ll get back to the right one.’

  ‘How many temples were there in the... in the olden days?’ Jinx demanded rhetorically. ‘Anyhow, it could be any kind of religious building – church, mosque, synagogue. We don’t even know if the same places recur.’

  ‘Yes we do,’ said Pen. ‘The monks in the study. They’d obviously had intruders coming through the portal before.’ She put her hand on the door knob.

  ‘Wait!’ Jinx interrupted. ‘We’re being really dumb. We’ve got the wishing stone, right? All we have to do is wish for Gavin.’

  Pen relaxed, slowly, her rarest smile spreading itself across her face – the one that made her appear to light up from within. ‘I’d forgotten,’ she said. ‘Stupid of me. Thank God – thank God. We must never, ever take the stone through any of the doors...’

  ‘’Course not.’

  The voice of Stiltz intruded from somewhere behind them. When they turned round, he was squatting on the hall table beside the vase, chewing on a dead twig.

  ‘That’ll be your third wish.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked Pen. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘You get three wishes. ’Tis the rule. That’ll be third.’

  ‘There was nothing about that in any of the books,’ said Jinx.

  ‘Nay lass, there’s no excuse for ’ee. You’re a witch; you know how magicks work. ’Tis allus three wishes – save when it’s one, or two. But this is a three-banded wishing stone; you get three. There’s one left. They don’t put owt in books acos they don’t need to. Everyone knows.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Jinx said, floundering. ‘Isn’t it three wishes each? Pen’s had one, Gavin’s had one, I haven’t had any. We ought to get nine overall.’

  ‘Nay,’ said the goblin. ‘You’re all about in the head. Three wishes, then you mun wait a hundred years. That’s how it goes, and no amount of moithering can change it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ said Pen.

  ‘You didn’t ask,’ Stiltz retorted predictably. ‘Any road, this one should’ve known. She’s a witch... of sorts.’

  Jinx ignored the jibe. ‘If we use up the wish now,’ she said, ‘that’s our lot. For the next hundred years.’

  ‘I was going to find the boy,’ said Pen. ‘The boy in my dream. I wasted a wish on the prince. I can’t believe I did that.’

  I was going to have a turn, thought Jinx, but she didn’t say it. ‘Gavin or the boy?’

  It was no contest.

  ‘You’d better do the wishing,’ said Jinx. ‘I’m not sure how sincere I’d be – ’specially if he brings the chav.’

  ‘Same door?’

  ‘Guess so.’

  Pen took the stone out of her rucksack, concentrated her thoughts on Gavin, and rubbed...

  Beyond the Doors

  Colchis, sometime in the mythical past

  IN THE TEMPLE, they were running out of time.

  ‘Æeetes will have sent for the army,’ the girl said. With the closing of the portal she had recovered her self-possession. ‘We must go now.’

  ‘But Penthesilé – Jacynthe–’ Gavin was still staring at the doorless wall.

  ‘They can take care of themselves.’ Jaeson was curt, uninterested. He must have charmed Jacynthe, made love to the Priestess, Gavin thought with familiar resignation. He does whatever it takes to get what he wants.

  ‘The Golden Ram,’ Jaeson said.

  ‘Follow me.’

  The witch-girl led them into an adjacent chamber and through a low door which opened only in response to a spellword, though she spoke so softly neither Gavin nor Jaeson heard what it was. There was a stair going down, leading to a vault beneath the temple; the only light came from torches burning in brackets along the walls, and shadows wheeled around them like dancers in an unending chain. For an instant, Gavin thought the shadows took shape, though what shape or shapes weren’t clear, and moved by themselves. The girl lifted something from a recess in passing; glancing after her more closely, Gavin saw it was a set of Pan-pipes, the kind goatherds play to calm their flock. He was suddenly conscious of the strangeness of the scene: the twisting stair with the treads that seemed to shift in the wavering torchlight, and the ill-assorted trio of priestess and pirate and adventurer from the distant south. The girl’s ear-rings clinked faintly as she moved and her dress whispered against her loins. Gavin was very aware of her but he suspected Jaeson’s mind was otherwhere: his eyes stared past her and his faun-like features were clenched in the fixity of obsession. Then they emerged from the doorway into the vault, and all else was forgotten.

  It was a treasure house. There were small chests and large chests and massive chests bound in iron, many of them open and spilling their contents across the floor: coins and beads and semi-precious stones, caskets encrusted with jewels and brimming with jewels, necklets and amulets, wine cups and loving cups, cloak-pins and brooches and daggers and crowns. The flamelight winked from heart’s blood rubies, peacock emeralds, rose sapphires and star sapphires, topaz and sea-beryl and rainbow opal. And everywhere was the mellow gleam of gold – gold the corrupter, the seducer, the thief of honour. They halted and stared, oblivious to danger – danger outside and danger within – their eyes drawn irresistibly to the centre of the room, where a shallow basin of eternal oil burned steadily. Beside it on a stone plinth stood the Ram.

  It was perhaps a foot high, made of solid gold – a gold so deeply, richly yellow that all other yellows would be dimmed by it. What craft had made it no man knew, but every detail was perfect, the curve of the horns, the curls of the fleece. This was the god in miniature, Ares the warlord, who showed himself to the favoured few in ram’s form, and its possessor would have the power to lead an army, and conquer all who stood in his way.

  Or at least, he would be very very rich...

  As if mesmerised, Jaeson started to move towards it, but the girl held him back.

  ‘No,’ she said, and the beginning of a smile arched her mouth. ‘Do you not see?’

  In the flicker of the shadows and the glitter of the treasure they had somehow missed the guardian. It lay coiled among the chests and the spilled gold, its mottled skin blending with them. Its scales were amber and umber, bistre and bronze, and the interplay of light and dark along its endless body had woven it into the background like a charm of concealment. Gavin had heard of giant serpents, in the lands of his birth, but he had never seen one, never imagined that the little desert vipers could have kin so monstrous. In places, it was as thick as the girl’s waist. There was the dry rasp of scale on scale, the chink of shifting coins, and its head rose, close to the Ram, forked tongue darting to taste the air. The mouth opened, showing huge fangs and the venom glands arching across its palate. Gavin raised his sword; Jaeson still had his enemy’s spear.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said the witch.

  She placed the pipes to her lips and began to play.

  The tune was a mere ripple of sound, soft as water; it was wavelets running over sand, dewmelt in the rising dawn. There were n
o words, but words shaped themselves in Gavin’s head, fragments of verse half nonsense, half magic...

  Hark to the piper that pipes the spell!

  The chant in enchantment, the wish in the well...

  List to the singer who sings of sleep –

  the drift into slumber millennium deep –

  no starlight in midnight, no dawnlight to creep

  from hillside and shoreside to tower and keep...

  The monster’s head swayed and sank, the fangs folding backward as its mouth closed, the great coils settling into a creeping slumber. Gavin felt his own eyelids drooping as his mind started to drift away. There was a moment of suspended time when he lost touch with who and where he was; he thought he was an unknown boy from a magic country of warm sumptuous interiors, boxes that talked and lights that burned without a flame, a country of horseless chariots moving at fantastic speed through a city that went on forever...

  ‘Now,’ said the girl, and he woke up.

  Jaeson was lifting the Ram – it seemed to be very heavy – carrying it under one arm, the spear still held in his other hand.

  The Priestess had knotted the pipes into her girdle, freeing her hands to kilt her skirts, but in her haste she must have made the knot too loose, and as they fled back up the stairs the pipes slipped to the floor. Gavin bent to retrieve them, thrusting them into the deepest pocket of his breeches. The girl didn’t seem to notice. They stumbled into the lighter gloom of the temple, blinking at the sunglimmer through the arched entrance. They thought it was empty save for the bodies of the fallen – the guard Gavin had taken was groaning, till Jaeson finished him off – then they saw the slave assigned to the young prince had taken refuge there, crouching in the shade beyond the sun’s reach. The child brightened when he saw the Priestess and came towards her. She picked him up, while the slave cowered away from them.

  ‘We’ll take him,’ she said. ‘He may be useful’ – as if he was a thing, another treasure stolen from the king’s hoard, not a living boy.

  Gavin said: ‘How?’ and Jaeson complained: ‘He’ll cry, and get in the way,’ but the girl held him tight and they followed her. Out into the sun and the last throes of the fight, summoning the other pirates as they ran, heading past the battleground for the path down to the cove where they had beached their ship. Æeetes and the rest of the court had fled, no doubt unwilling to risk the wait for reinforcements, and the Warriors of the Teeth were slain or scattered. For the moment, there was no serious pursuit. Jaeson’s men left their dead but the wounded were carried pig-a-back by those who had the strength for it; Obelaos, bigger and tougher even than Herakles, lifted one man easily in his arms, Asterion shared the weight of another with a fellow pirate.

  At the beach, the handful left on board ship had readied everything for departure.

  ‘What about Penthesilé?’ Gavin demanded, his shoulder against the stern. Most of the crew were already at the oars.

  ‘We can’t wait,’ Jaeson said as the Argo slid into the water. ‘There’ll be an entire army here any minute.’ He vaulted onto the deck and Gavin swung over the side after him. He knew Penthesilé would not come.

  They strained against the drag of the coastal current, and gradually the headland slipped behind them and they were out in the open sea. They saw soldiers on the beach, swarming dark figures too distant for the peril of bowshot or spear-throw. But they were few, and Jaeson frowned as he watched them. The little boy, released from his sister’s clasp, was running up and down, excited and intrigued, laughing when the ship lurched and he tumbled over. Two crewmen were raising the sail as the wind picked up. The witch-girl stood beside Jaeson and Gavin, gazing towards the shore.

  ‘The pride of the king’s fleet is a trireme,’ she said, ‘larger than this, and swifter. We will need a strong wind and a long lead to get away.’

  But the wind blew gently and their lead was still short when they saw the purple sail rounding the point, and the ram’s head prow beating on their trail.

  London, twenty-first century

  IN THE ANCIENT beige offices of Whitbread Tudor Hayle, the newest incumbent sat facing the senior partner across a crowded expanse of desk.

  ‘So you’re a Tudor,’ said Mr Lazarus, who, despite his name, was still very much alive and a few years short of retirement age. ‘That really is very fortunate. We like to maintain the family connection. The present generation of Hayles are in the City and the Whitbreads, I am sorry to say, have gone to America.’ He spoke as if it was the modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘Of course, I can see the relationship. You have the colouring.’

  The young man opposite him had the pallor of someone who never sees the sun and a blaze of golden-red hair worn rather too long for a lawyer, though somehow Mr Lazarus didn’t like to say so.

  ‘I’m only a distant cousin,’ he said. ‘This girl – Penelope, isn’t it? – may not even have heard of me.’ He had the faintest hint of an accent, so faint that Lazarus couldn’t place it and didn’t try.

  ‘I’m sure she will be happy to know she has a family member to rely on,’ the older man said comfortably. ‘This business of Andrew Pyewackett’s Will really has been most awkward. There’s no precedent – no precedent at all. One is used to people choosing unlikely legatees – one lady recently left a small fortune divided between a goldfish and a budgerigar, though I believe at the last count the goldfish decided to take the matter to court – but executors are supposed to be responsible adults. I daresay we should be grateful he didn’t have a pet.’

  ‘There is a dog,’ said the young man. ‘Or so I understand.’

  ‘Is there? Well, well. I can see you’re already well-informed. Of course, this girl has her rights, but as the firm’s official representative you should be able to handle her. Yes, really a very great relief. One doesn’t like to think of a minor bearing so much responsibility. There has been no sign of this Bartlemy Goodwin, no sign at all.’

  ‘Difficult,’ said the young man. ‘The main house is a valuable property, isn’t it? And currently unoccupied. It seems to be something of a waste. Selling is out of the question, naturally, but perhaps it could be let for a while. I might even know a suitable tenant.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Mr Lazarus. ‘I don’t know why it hasn’t been considered before. A waste, as you say. The girl is staying in the smaller house, at the express wish of the decedent, but there’s no one in Number 7. He was against the whole idea of an occupant, I don’t know why. A rather eccentric personality. But there’s nothing in the Will to prevent it. I imagine it may be haunted or something – this firm does handle some rather unusual portfolios – but I trust that won’t prevent you adopting a business-like approach.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the newcomer.

  ‘Exactly. I can see you believe in maintaining a professional attitude. Well, I’ll leave everything in your hands. Do consult if there are any problems.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the young man, who didn’t look as if he ever needed to consult. Not with other lawyers, anyway.

  He rose, and went back to the (beige) office formerly occupied by Jasveer Patel. There was a new laptop on the desk, a svelte, matte-black machine as slim as an after-dinner mint, with no manufacturer’s logo but a complex scarlet sigil embossed on the top. The young man opened it: the keys were blank, but when he touched a switch on the side glimmering letters came and went in an assortment of different alphabets. The screensaver was a small flame dancing at the heart of a circle and instead of the touchpad there was an inset disc which lit up with the skull of a rat, fanged and with glowing red eyes. The young man pressed the left eye twice: the screen went dark, black as a black hole – there was no surface any more, only a window into emptiness. Gradually, an image appeared, an indistinct figure, more shadow than substance, sitting behind a gleaming desktop on which stood an inkless well, a quill pen, a dagger which might or might not be for cutting paper. And a skull. A skull that glistened as if it were covered in chips of ice,
which of course it was.

  The light from the desk lamp winked back from the skull in a thousand glancing stars, but it did not reach the seated figure. No light could illuminate him any more, nor ever would again.

  ‘Master,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Sætor.’ The ice-edged, steel-cold voice sounded slightly bored.

  ‘I’m established at the company. They’ve appointed me as their representative to replace Patel. All according to plan.’

  ‘Of course. Have you anything else to report?’

  ‘I told them I’m a Tudor. The red hair clinched it. Whether the girl will be fooled is another matter; I have the impression she’s fairly intelligent.’ There was a frown in his tone, more than his expression; an undercurrent of doubt.

  ‘She’s a human child.’ The Shadow was contemptuous. ‘What can she know? She will barely have lived before her time comes to die. Indeed, if she is not careful, it may come very soon. She does not interest me.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ The young man was conscientiously respectful. ‘But there is something about her which disturbs me, something I can’t remember...’

  ‘I see no reason for her to disturb me. You have always been adept at dealing with any trouble. Deal with it.’

  ‘Certainly, Master.’

  ‘The important thing is to assert control on the ground. The candidates for my apprenticeship may appear very shortly, and it is essential that my representative should be there to greet them and bring them to me. This weak link in the chain of guardianship is most opportune. There are those who might call it the workings of providence, and claim God is on their side. It would be ironic, would it not, if there was a God, and He was backing Me.’

  ‘Good one,’ said the skull. ‘I like it. Nothing like a touch of religious ambiguity to get the philosophers going.’