Druid''s Sword

  I gave a little smile. “Does Catling know about the bands? Is that why she’s been sitting with me all these years?”

  “Catling thinks they are in the Faerie,” Jack said. “I don’t think she has any idea that they never left you.” He gave a slow smile. “Imagine, something she doesn’t know.”

  I laughed. Just a little bit, but I laughed. He was teasing me gently, knowing that I would think that he would use Catling’s misconception as a further indication of her weakness.

  “All right,” I said. I looked at Ariadne, and, for the first time in centuries, remembered what it had felt like as she talked me through what I needed to do when St Paul’s burned down in 1666. The power, the strength, and the sense that, both literally and metaphorically, I did not walk alone. “If Ariadne agrees to deepen my training, then I’m willing.”

  Jack grinned and Ariadne laughed, clapping her hands.

  “Come with me tonight, then,” she said, “and let me drag you down into darkness!”

  “You have such a way with words, Granny Ariadne,” I said, “but I’d prefer to leave it until tomorrow when I’ve had time to have a bath and warm up.”

  So there it was. Jack wanted to “get to know me better”, having declared he found my mother “not quite what he was after”, and Ariadne was going to deepen my training in the arts of the labyrinth.

  I went back to the Savoy that night very, very happy. Overall I felt useful, but I also felt wanted.

  I felt valued. Not just by Jack, but by the kingship bands as well.

  I sat in the bath that night, and ran my hands slowly up and down my arms. Jack had told me that the ribbons had appeared on all my limbs, but the four bands Noah handed over to the Lord of the Faerie had been the four armbands, and these had buried themselves in the flesh of my arms, above and below my elbows.

  I pressed against the flesh, and imagined I could feel them.

  I was the one to hand them back to Jack.

  Once I would have worried about that. Worried that somehow I’d mess it up, or worried that somehow I’d corrupt the ritual because of my ties to Catling.

  But I didn’t worry about any of it. All I felt was a growing excitement.

  And all I saw, as I sat there in the warm water, running my hands slowly up and down my arms, was Jack’s face as he said to me, You are…so…damn…beautiful.

  FIVE

  Copt Hall

  Friday, 13th September 1940

  Jack had leapt far out into the dark unknown that afternoon and evening, risking much of himself and all he hoped to achieve. Despite this, all he could feel on his return to Copt Hall that night was relief and a growing kernel of excitement deep within his being. What he was doing was a massive risk, affecting not merely himself, but the entire land and all who lived in it, but at least he had a direction and, for once, it felt as if he’d made a good decision.

  And so much of it depended on Grace.

  Jack sat in the kitchen of Copt Hall finishing a plateful of food. He couldn’t get the image of the temple bell on the dark snowy night out of his head. It was an image which combined terrible fragility and stunning strength, and Jack thought it probably described Grace as well as anything.

  But which would dominate? The fragility, or the strength?

  “Major?”

  Jack looked up. Malcolm was standing before the table, holding a delicate plate filled with sponge cakes.

  “No, thank you,” Jack said, and stood up. “I’ll turn in for the night, I think.”

  He left the room, Malcolm grinning at his departing back.

  That night Jack dreamed. He dreamed he stood in the middle of London Bridge, Catling standing before him.

  The Great Marriage was well done, said Catling, but you need to know that the greatest marriage you can ever make is in my dark heart.

  And then she was gone.

  When Jack woke the next morning it was to find himself in a state of painful arousal coupled with a deep, bitter anger that Catling should have so spoiled his memory of the previous day.

  That day Grace moved out of her parents’ apartment in the Savoy.

  “Ariadne has asked me to come live with her for a little while,” she explained to her dumbfounded parents.

  “I’m sorry,” she added.

  Noah and Weyland exchanged a glance, and Grace could see a world of anxiety in that look.

  Noah looked back at her daughter. “Why?” she asked.

  “Ariadne has offered to teach me a little more of what she knows about the art and craft of the labyrinth,” Grace said.

  “I could teach you that,” said Noah.

  Grace looked deeply uncomfortable. “I know. It’s just that Ariadne asked me last night, and I—”

  “Don’t apologise,” said Noah. “I could have offered myself and didn’t.” She smiled. “Ariadne is a taxing teacher, Grace, but she will teach you well.”

  Weyland grunted. “All the art and craft she knows is that of murder,” he said. Then he sighed, and apologised. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to leave us.”

  Grace gave a quirky smile. “It is time I left home. Three hundred years is too long.”

  Noah laughed. “Aye, that it is,” she said. “Will we still see you on the canteen run, Grace?”

  “I don’t see why not. Some nights, anyway.”

  “Then from where shall we pick you up? Does Ariadne still reside in the Tower?”

  “No. She has a flat in Kensington, off Cromwell Road.” Grace gave Noah the address. “Mother—”

  Suddenly Noah wanted to stop whatever Grace might be about to say. She leaned forward and hugged Grace to her. “And when you tire of Ariadne’s archness, my darling, remember there’s a home for you here.”

  “What’s happening, Noah?” Weyland asked as Grace retired to her room to pack.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know.” She shivered, and wrapped her arms about herself.

  Weyland drove Grace to Ariadne’s apartment later that afternoon. He felt he had to face Ariadne, to impress on her that Grace was everything to him and that if she harmed her, or allowed harm to touch her…

  He’d also been ruminating on what Silvius had said: that he needed to put his animosity to Ariadne aside. Until recently, Weyland had not set eyes on Ariadne for over three and a half thousand years, not since that day she’d inveigled his return from the halls of the dead in order to bargain for her share of the Darkcraft. In his mind she’d assumed almost mythical proportions—the black witch committed always, totally, to his destruction.

  And now she was taking his daughter.

  “Grace,” he muttered as they rang the doorbell to her apartment, “be careful.”

  Grace turned to him, tears in her eyes, and gave him a brief hug. She started to speak, but just then the door opened.

  Ariadne stood there, dressed in her usual scarlet, a cigarette in one hand, and an expression of, unusually for her, some trepidation on her face.

  She and Weyland stared at each other for a moment.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said.

  “It’s been a hellish time,” Weyland said, and Ariadne’s mouth twitched.

  “I’ll take care of her, Asterion.”

  “Be sure that you do.”

  Silence. They didn’t look away from each other, nor did they blink.

  Then Weyland gave a funny little laugh. “I can’t believe I’m allowing you to take my daughter,” he said, then he turned and walked back down the stairs to the building’s foyer.

  “So much wasted,” Ariadne said softly, watching him.

  “What do you mean?” Grace said.

  “He and I…everything. So much hatred, so much ambition. So much wasted time when we could have had…” She broke off, then shrugged. “I’m getting maudlin in my old age, my dear. Now, come in why don’t you.”

  As Ariadne stepped back, Grace lifted her suitcase and walked in the door.

  Straight into the sw
irling maelstrom of the Great Founding Labyrinth.

  SIX

  Kensington

  Friday, 13th September to Monday, 16th September 1940

  Ariadne realised she had made two gigantic errors of judgement the instant the front door closed behind them.

  The first error of judgement was her assumption that, even though Stella may not have been the most powerful person to teach Grace the intricacies of the labyrinth, she had at least done a competent job.

  The second error was her assumption that the very worst mistake she’d ever made was when she’d pledged Asterion her soul, and that of her daughter-heirs, if ever she tried to restart the Game.

  In fact, Ariadne realised very suddenly, and horrifically, by far the worst mistake of her life was propelling Grace directly into the Great Founding Labyrinth when, in fact, she wasn’t able to cope with it.

  Damn Stella to all hells for not training the girl properly!

  As the door closed behind them, Grace crumpled over, dropping her suitcase, a low moan of agony escaping her mouth.

  For one sickening, heart-stopping moment, Ariadne thought the Great Founding Labyrinth was going to kill Grace.

  But Grace should have endured this when she went through her Great Ordeal! She should be able to cope.

  Ariadne cried out, one hand reaching for Grace, the other fumbling for the door as if she thought she could drag Grace out into the hallway.

  But the Great Founding Labyrinth would not allow Grace to leave now, not when it had her in its maw.

  Oh why, why hadn’t she thought it possible that Grace might not be able to cope?

  Because she’d assumed—big, big mistake, the worst of her life—that Stella had trained Grace well, if not brilliantly.

  But then Grace twisted about, and Ariadne saw that her wrists were crossed before her, and that wires of glowing red encircled them.

  Catling had attacked the instant she felt Grace walk into the Great Founding Labyrinth.

  Ariadne abandoned her attempt to open the door, and instead grabbed at Grace’s shoulder. “Use the pain, Grace. Use it to concentrate your mind and power!”

  It was a struggle, but Ariadne felt both intense relief and admiration for Grace sweep over her as the girl’s eyes hardened with determination and power.

  “The pain is a harmony as any other,” said Ariadne. “Dominate it, don’t allow it to dominate you, and then use it.”

  Grace drew in a deep breath, straightening her body, her eyes locked into those of Ariadne, drawing strength from her foremother.

  “Use the pain,” Ariadne said one more time.

  Another deep breath, then Grace’s body relaxed a little, and she gave a single nod. The red lines still glowed about her wrists, and Ariadne understood that they still caused Grace agony, but now the girl was using the agony—using the harmonies spun out by the agony—as an accelerant to her own power.

  Ariadne took a deep breath of her own. Dear gods, what a fright! “You have control now?” she said.

  Grace nodded, although Ariadne could see that such control was taking considerable effort.

  “Did Catling never attack you when Stella trained you? When Stella took you into the Great Founding Labyrinth? When you underwent your Great Ordeal?”

  “No.” Grace’s voice was quiet, but it was underpinned with strength, and Ariadne decided she could let go the remnants of her anxiety.

  “Interesting,” said Ariadne. “She wasn’t concerned when you underwent your initial training, but now she thinks to attack you.”

  “I don’t think Catling likes you very much, Ariadne.”

  Ariadne laughed. “Then I’ll take it as a compliment that she’s upset now. But enough of Catling. You can cope with the pain? Good. Now, young lady, let me see what you’re capable of.”

  They spent the entire afternoon and evening deep within the Great Founding Labyrinth which Ariadne had raised in her drawing room. Ariadne, having recovered from her initial fright, took things more slowly than she’d originally intended.

  No need to tempt the fates any more than she already had.

  As suspected, Stella had done a competent job of teaching Grace, but she hadn’t even begun to plumb the depths of Grace’s abilities. Ariadne remembered when she’d trained Noah. Noah had been so extraordinary, so capable, so instinctive, that Ariadne had radically revised her original training schedule. Noah had not needed training so much as a gentle prompting now and again in the right direction.

  Grace, as Ariadne quickly discovered, was similar. Her power was also instinctive, and she should have also been trained with gentle prompts. But Stella obviously had not recognised this, and had instead adhered to a more traditional programme of training—a far more restrictive programme—that simply had not allowed Grace to open herself up to her true abilities.

  Stella may also simply have not cared very much, Ariadne thought. As the Caroller, her mind was on far different things, a far different world, and Ariadne doubted that Stella had used her abilities as Mistress of the Labyrinth very much at all in the past few hundred years.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Ariadne found herself muttering over and over as she discovered yet another door that had been slammed in Grace’s face. “I should have taken you in hand many years ago.”

  For this initial session, Ariadne contented herself with exploring Grace’s powers and working out just what was needed to open Grace up to her own potential. At midnight, when she sensed that both of them were close to exhaustion, she put her hand on Grace’s arm, and muttered, “Enough!”

  Instantly the Great Founding Labyrinth vanished, to be replaced by Ariadne’s drawing room.

  And the moment that the Great Founding Labyrinth vanished, so also did the fiery lines about Grace’s wrists.

  Grace almost collapsed, surprised by the sudden cessation of pain (which she had been using, almost as a prop, during the past few hours), and overwhelmed by exhaustion.

  “Let’s get you to bed,” said Ariadne.

  For the next two days Ariadne took Grace into the Great Founding Labyrinth every morning. There they spent several hours, Ariadne doing what she had done with Noah, prompting Grace, nudging her (sometimes literally, with an elbow in Grace’s ribs) in the right direction, praising her when she made a huge leap forward.

  These leaps became more and more frequent—by mid-Sunday morning all Ariadne had to do was to stand back and watch.

  Dear gods, how had Stella missed this?

  Grace was powerful. As powerful as Noah, although in a different way. She had a darker and even more instinctive grasp of the power of the labyrinth. She didn’t bring at her back the powers of Eaving as Noah did, but she more than made up for that with her command of the Darkcraft.

  The Darkcraft, twice-bred in Grace as Weyland was both her forefather and her father.

  But it was more than that, Ariadne finally, stunningly realised. It wasn’t that Grace commanded the Darkcraft in twice the measure that someone like Noah did; she commanded it an infinity of times more. It was as if Grace could somehow touch all the wielders of Darkcraft in her heritage (Noah, Weyland, Ariadne, and all the daughter-heirs of Ariadne’s up to and including Genvissa-Stella), and draw on all their power. Grace didn’t actually realise she was doing this—frankly, Ariadne believed that Grace had no idea at all of her potential or her power—but do it she could.

  And all of this tied to Catling by that cursed hex.

  Catling had not struck again after Friday afternoon, but Grace told Ariadne she could feel her watching, which made Ariadne worry.

  If they spent the mornings inside the Great Founding Labyrinth, then they spent the afternoons talking.

  Neither Noah nor Stella had told Grace anything of the heritage of the Mistresses of the Labyrinth (and Ariadne was not going to berate them for it, for she, too, should have attended to this), and so Ariadne took Grace for a long meander through history during these long afternoons.

  She did this not so much as part of Gr
ace’s training (which, indeed, it was), but because Jack had asked Ariadne to prepare Grace for that moment when he would ask her for the kingship bands.

  Ariadne was not the only one who taught Grace her history. Silvius attended to this as well.

  Silvius and Ariadne had enjoyed (although that was, perhaps, too strongly emotive an expression for it) a sexual relationship, off and on, for some years. They’d gradually drifted together, drawn not merely by a strong sexual attraction, but by the fact that, as a Mistress of the Labyrinth and as a Kingman (if minus the kingship bands), Ariadne and Silvius were naturally drawn together.

  Besides, they had lived at roughly contemporary times in the Aegean world, and had shared memories and friends.

  Ariadne had not asked Silvius to attend simply because they could get chummy over old times. She asked him, in part, because he could help as much as she in teaching Grace the history and antiquities of the labyrinth, but mostly because he was a Kingman, and Grace needed contact and interaction with a Kingman. She’d had interaction with Kingmen before, of course. She’d known Silvius all her life, and Weyland was close enough to being a Kingman also, and she’d had, over the past year, contact with Jack.

  But, apart from those few minutes with Jack atop Ambersbury Banks, she’d never interacted with a Kingman as a Mistress of the Labyrinth, and she needed that experience.

  Admittedly, Ariadne thought that Jack would be giving Grace a reasonable amount of “experience” in that matter in the not-too-distant future, but Ariadne could also see that many other emotions would be caught up in that experience, and she thought it would benefit Grace to have contact with a Kingman with whom she wasn’t increasingly emotionally bound.

  What Jack had told Ariadne about his encounter with Grace atop Ambersbury Banks convinced Ariadne that Grace needed some fairly intense tuition in the art and craft of Kingmen. Jack had realised immediately that Grace’s power and her abilities were a flawless match to his own, but Grace had not realised it.