Once...

  Spiders. A fluid multitude. Legions of dark scuttling bodies. Streaming towards him.

  He was too aghast to scream. Too shocked to move. Not again! Oh dear God, not again! But they couldn’t hurt him. Rigwit had told him that. They could crawl all over him, they could get inside his clothing, skitter over his flesh, but – they – could – not – hurt – him!

  In a second they were swarming round his feet. In two seconds they were climbing his legs. Holding the candle in his left hand, he swatted them, squashed them against himself, his jeans turning darker with their blood. But they were inside the material, they were crawling over his bare flesh. And – Christ! – they were biting!

  This couldn’t be! Rigwit had said they couldn’t hurt him! And they hadn’t before! At least, not till the very end of their attack!

  He cried out as his calf received a particularly vicious nip. Jesus! It hurt! He slapped at the back of his leg and felt something pulp against his skin. Others were climbing higher, he could feel them racing up his thighs! More bites, more nips. A stinging. Like a needle pushed into his knee. No! They shouldn’t – A cry again. Oh God, something on his neck, puncturing the skin there! They moved so fast. And there was no end to them. More and more swept over the tip of the top stair, rippling over lower ones, a great tide of spiders, all headed towards him, re-igniting the conflict.

  Involuntarily, he stepped backwards, missed his footing on the stair, and went down, at first falling against the rail, then bouncing off it, tumbling down the rest of the stairway to the flat half-landing below. He lay there, stunned and in terror, the candle on its side a little way off, out of reach, but, fortunately, still burning. Even as he raised his head from the floor, the scuttling hordes streamed down to him and within moments they were all over, in his hair, inside his shirt, his jeans, everywhere. He felt their jabs, their stings, their bites – he felt them eating him!

  Thom rolled over in an effort to crush as many as possible, but still they came, a seemingly endless flood of them, covering him, swarming over every square inch, finding their way into his ears and nostrils and, when he opened his mouth to scream, into his mouth. The pain was terrible, like red-hot needles pricking his skin and he had to close his eyes as they poured over his eyelids. He rolled this way and that, hitting himself, rising enough to press his back against the wood-panelling of the wall, killing as many of the little bastards as possible, squashing them so that they were no more than gooey bits of mush and gore that could no longer bite. It was no use though, there were just too many and their stinging jabs were too much to bear. Thom felt himself swoon with the intensity of the pain, for although the bites were nothing in themselves, painful but tolerable, combined they were overwhelming. He spat bodies and dismembered legs from his mouth, swiped tormentors from his face, and felt what remaining strength he had left fast draining from him.

  Only when something tugged at his shoulder did he open his eyes, immediately closing them again to blink away spiders. He brushed a hand across his eyes again and saw the anxious face of Rigwit staring up into his own. The little man had comparatively few spiders crawling over him – Thom apparently was the main target – and to those there were he paid no mind.

  ‘You’re allowing them to hurt you this time.’ The elf said, cross rather than anxious. ‘Your mind is tired, weak, as well as your body, and because you’re not resisting them, they have power over you.’

  ‘I am . . . I am resisting them.’ Even as he spoke, Thom feebly swatted spiders crawling over his raised knee.

  ‘No, you’re believing in them too much. It’s not your fault, you’re too exhausted. But you must resist, Thom, you must tell yourself they cannot hurt you.’ Rigwit’s voice was not even raised. It was as though he, himself, was not unduly bothered by the spiders. As if to make the point, he flicked off a particularly large and nasty-looking individual with a gross furry body and heavy furry legs and which had appeared crawling over his shoulder.

  ‘But they are hurting me!’ Thom yelled back at him.

  ‘Go into your mind, tell yourself otherwise,’ Rigwit patiently urged.

  ‘It’s no good, I can’t! They’re killing me!’

  ‘Try. Try harder.’

  Thom did try, but he could still feel those prickly legs all over him, still yelped at any particularly stinging bite, of which there were many.

  ‘Keep trying, Thom. I’ll be back.’ With that, the elf sprang up the stairs, crushing spiders with his feet as he went.

  ‘Don’t leave me! Come back!’ Thom’s disbelieving gaze followed the climbing elf – each step was like a waist-high shelf to the little man until he disappeared over the edge of the top stair and spiders dropped from Thom’s hair into his eyes again.

  In desperation, he scrambled for the candle lying a short distance away, its flame still burning. He picked it up with spider-infested fingers and brought the flame close to his body, touching it to the tiny specimens that had now become slow, content to nest and feed on their prey. They shrivelled up under the fire and he could almost hear – only in his imagination, of course – their dying screeches. There were still too many though. Blinking hard again to dislodge those on his eyelids, he looked down to see his body was thick with them.

  A light patter of feet on the stairs, the occasional squelch of a larger-bodied spider as it was flattened underfoot, and then Rigwit was by his side again, the same dirty jar (so Thom assumed) that Thom had hurled from the cottage the night before in his small hands.

  ‘Throw it, Thom,’ Rigwit said close to his ear while proffering the jar. ‘Cast it away. The spiders must follow wherever the vessel is cast.’

  Like a drowning man grasping for a lifebelt, Thom took the jar from the elf and raised it over his shoulder, ignoring the parasites that nipped and ate his body, making ready to throw it down the stairs.

  ‘No!’ Rigwit commanded urgently. ‘Through the window. It must be cast outside for it to work.’

  Thom aimed at the window overlooking the stair-landing, and pitched the jar as hard as he could, using up whatever strength he had left. The window shattered and the jar disappeared into the night just as lightning flared outside.

  Thunder seemed to rattle the building.

  He collapsed against the panelling and the spiders instantly began to leave. They seemed to drain from him as one, flowing towards the wall beneath the broken window; up they rose, a thick throbbing mass of them, climbing on to the glass in lower frames and then through the opening, where the wind howled and whistled in. The stream on the stairs bypassed Thom and the elf, pouring to the wall and up to the smashed windowpane. It took surprisingly little time for them all to go by, and quickly the numbers began to dwindle, the stream becoming narrower, a trickle.

  A strange thing – that is, another strange thing – happened to the last few hundred or so. As they reached the wall and began their journey upwards, they began to dissolve, to fade away, as though they had not really been there at all, until finally, there were none left to see. Only Thom and Rigwit remained on the mansion’s stairway.

  Thom closed his eyes, but this time it was with relief. He drew in great gulpfuls of the fresh but charged air that blew in from the hole in the window. He was finished. He knew he could do no more and a tear spilt down his cheek. He could not save his grandfather. He was too used up. Although he no longer felt any spider-caused pain, his body ached with fatigue and he knew he would be bruised from the fall downstairs. He was cut and marked from his race to get here, but that was all, there was no other hurt. It was as if the episode with the spiders had never happened, although he knew it had and that it was something he would never forget.

  Opening his eyes, he searched for Rigwit in the candle light, but the elf had disappeared from view. He soon heard the soft patter of small feet again, and there was Rigwit, climbing back up the stairs from below, the book from Little Bracken clasped in his arms. The elf laid it down next to Thom.

  ‘It’s no good, Rigwit,’ Thom told
him wearily. ‘I can’t do any more. I can barely move.’

  ‘That’s why you need this.’ Rigwit raised a loop of leather over his head and one shoulder; attached to it was a tiny leather bag that held a container or vial of some kind – Thom could just see its top sticking out from the bag’s open end.

  Rigwit undid the top and held the bag out towards Thom. ‘Drink this,’ he said ‘You’ll soon feel better.’

  ‘What is it? Another magic potion?’

  ‘It will make you feel strong again. I brought it from the cottage with the book. I’m sorry I couldn’t catch up with you, Thom, but the book is heavy and my legs were never meant for running too far.’

  Thom’s head sank back against the oak panelling. He closed his eyes. ‘How did you get in here?’ he asked distractedly, wanting only to lay down on the floor and sleep. ‘Through the cellars, like me?’

  ‘There are a hundred ways for my kind to get into this place,’ Rigwit answered, pushing the leather-encased container against Thom’s lips. ‘Now come on, you must drink. If you’re to be of any use, you must be strong again.’

  Reluctantly, Thom opened his mouth and allowed Rigwit to pour in the liquid. It was not only his strength that had left him, but his spirit too. How much more must he endure?

  The potion flowed like treacle, thick, glutinous, but it tasted like nothing he’d tasted before. It had a sweetness that was subtle, an aftertaste really; he had an odd image of drinking deep red velvet, it was the only way he could describe the sensation. And he could feel it sinking into his throat rather than it being swallowed, flowing smoothly and instantly beginning to spread into his system like the brew he’d drunk before, but somehow different. From the main arterial that was his throat, it seemed to follow lesser tributaries he hadn’t known existed so that his whole body was replete. The small bottle or vial contained no more that a thimbleful of the potion, medicine, whatever, and it was gone in one long gulp.

  ‘That should see to it,’ said Rigwit when he was satisfied that every last drop – in actuality, it was all one large drop – had been consumed. ‘It’s very powerful stuff, lad, extremely potent, and, I might add, ’tisn’t easy to come by. Had to do a lot of bargaining to get this much. I’ll be working off the consideration for the next hundred and fifty years or so. Not meant for humans, y’see, only for the faerefolkis. However, in your case there was a lot for the counsel to consider.’

  Thom was only half-listening, for the sensation spreading through his body was too wonderful for him to concentrate on other things. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the other juices he’d taken, but its effect was far greater and even more immediate if that were possible. His strength returned in a matter of seconds and his spirit lifted in equal amounts. The numbness went from the left side of his body and the exhaustion became barely a memory. What the hell was he sitting here on the stairs for when all that mattered was that he reached the roof room before Nell Quick had a chance to murder Sir Russell? He pushed himself to his feet and turned back to the next flight of stairs.

  ‘Wait, Thom.’ Rigwit had caught hold of his leg. He leaned down towards the little man, holding the candle near his face. He saw a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety there now. ‘You must take care,’ the elf told him. ‘What you find at the top of this house might destroy us all. It will be the most terrible thing you have ever had to face.’

  ‘After what I’ve been through lately? I doubt it.’

  The grip tightened.

  ‘If you’re not dead by the end of this night, you might at least be mad. Use caution, Thom, and listen to your inner voice, because it’s always true.’

  The inner voice again. It hadn’t really helped so far.

  As if reading his thoughts, Rigwit said, ‘You must believe in the voice. Your only real power is in your conviction. Faith is both your shield and your weapon. There is only so much we can do to help; the malign forces have moved into your realm now.’

  Thom considered what he had been told for a moment. Naturally, he did have a choice. He could run down these stairs and out into the stormy night, call the police from a safe distance. But he was feeling good, strong, confident, not quite eager for battle, but not adverse to it. He was still afraid, but the fear was surmountable. Again, he turned to go, but the grip held.

  Rigwit’s voice was grave. ‘Remember, you will see and feel things that will make you doubt your own sanity, and I mean it when I say madness, indeed, might soon follow. You think that over the past days and nights you have witnessed the very worst that nightmares may bring, but this I can tell you: they were nothing compared to the abominations that await you in that loathsome room above. They will be insidious and sly, cunning and dangerous. And unless care is taken, they will be fatal. You will be afraid, Thom, so afraid you’ll feel weak again. Even the effects of the potion will not help you.’

  ‘Thanks for the pep talk.’

  ‘You must believe me!’

  Thom was taken aback by the sudden anger.

  More calmly, although his little body was trembling, Rigwit went on: ‘Take the book with you. Use it as you used it last time. That and your faith is all you have.’

  Thom lifted the heavy book, briefly wondering how the elf had managed to carry it through the woods. It must have weighed more than Rigwit himself.

  The thought, he knew, was a deliberate distraction, his own mind’s way of deflecting further consideration of what lay ahead for him. Rigwit’s warning had roused his nervousness again, despite the feeling of wellbeing induced by the potion, and maybe that was the idea, maybe he had begun to feel too bold, too incautious, and the elf knew that could be just as dangerous as fear, in an odd way, maybe even more so.

  Once again he looked into the darkness of the next landing, and once again he felt terribly afraid.

  He really did not want to go up there.

  He took the first step.

  THOM STEADIED himself. He stood before the double doors to Sir Russell’s great bedchamber, candle in one hand, the book under his other arm, its base resting against his hip. Sounds came from the other side of the doors, moanings, wailings, the kind of sounds he thought only distressed children could make.

  The antechamber was in darkness, but there was a soft glow from beneath the doors. It wavered gently as candlelight would.

  He swapped his small flame over to his right hand, awkwardly pressing the book against his body with elbow and wrist, and reached for one of the door-handles. He stayed his hand. It was shivering badly.

  The problem was putting Rigwit’s hints about the horrors that lay beyond these doors out of his mind. He grew angry with himself, cursed himself, called himself a wimp, a wuss – and yes, a coward. He was just plain scared.

  And who could blame me? he asked himself and that, at least, gave him some satisfaction. Reality had shifted around him, dimensions had become interlinked. This past week he had witnessed both wondrous and abhorrent things, had made love to an undine, had been scared witless by a monster, had discovered his own birthright. He’d been amazed and abused, overawed and terrorized. Too much had happened, too many new concepts had besieged his fragile mind, to go through the list right now. Yes, he was profoundly afraid, disorientated – even in love, for Christ’s sake! – and what normal man or woman would blame him for bailing out right there and then?

  Only himself, came the wordless reply.

  A muffled shriek from next door, an old, quavery voice. Sir Russell.

  Oh shit. Thom steeled himself. Twisted the doorknob, nudged the door open a little. Then, expecting the worst, stood back and kicked the door wide.

  He stopped on the threshold, open-mouthed.

  Nothing.

  No monsters.

  No coven of witches dancing around a bubbling cauldron.

  No demons.

  Nothing.

  Except for the dim figure of Hugo Bleeth cowering in a shadowy corner, knees drawn up, his arms before his face, Nell Quick standing rigid in the centre of a cru
dely drawn five-pointed star within a circle, a pentagram, a candle burning at each apex. She clutched a piece of paper in one hand and faced the room’s big drapeless four-poster bed on which Sir Russell Bleeth, a frail and sick old man, sat upright, oxygen mask and tubes still in place.

  But nothing else.

  Except for black candles placed around the room, all of them lit, each a separate island of brightness in singular struggle with the surrounding darkness, their waxy smell mingling with a smell that was so rank, so foul, that death – or its corruption – seemed to occupy the room.

  Nothing more than that, though.

  Except . . .

  Except for the other shadows that now began to emerge from the overall shadows, coming from the corners, the ceiling, from beneath the bed . . .

  Emerging as if they had hidden when the door had burst open or as Thom’s own mind and eyes began to perceive the insubstantial entities that filled the room, a crowd, a host, of vaporous beings that loomed and shifted, that were part of the darkness as night itself, forms without real form, amorphous configurations that depended on the intellect for definition. Already Thom was imagining cowled hunched figures, enormously tall as if they were mere shadows cast against the walls by the candle-glows. Only they were not confined to the walls; they roamed the room itself.

  Then they bunched together and became something else. No longer shadows, they became countless serpents, intertwined and weaving, fanged heads rearing over the four-poster bed and the man in it, darting down as if to strike, but never touching, although Sir Russell flinched each time one came near.

  Still at the door, Thom realized almost at once that this was their true horror: they could be whatever abomination the individual’s mind could conceive. And because their attention was on the sick man, it was Sir Russell’s mind that created their being. He further reasoned, all in the space of seconds, that if they were figments of the imagination, then they had no substance and could do no physical damage. Unless you believed implicitly, that is, as he had discovered with the spiders.