The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,26
and your place in this world. Nevertheless, I agree. Our weakness is something your kind would never understand – honour. Our word is unbreakable, even though it mean pain, or loss, or defeat. Do you find any gain in that knowledge? Does your kind even understand what honour means? I think not,’ she added with cold contempt.
Will folded the information away and continued lightly, ‘Is it true that you have made your home in the New World?’
‘Would you visit my palace, O man?’ she enquired. He heard a crackle of dark humour in her voice.
‘I am sure you would offer me all the courtesies extended to every mortal who has crossed from this world of hard things into your moonlit realm.’ He waited a moment and then added, ‘Yet perhaps I could offer a few common courtesies of my own.’
The Faerie Queen laughed. ‘Oh, what sport that would be. Would you wave your sword at us? Would you rage and curse and threaten? Before we fell upon you like wolves?’
‘We have more steel in us than you imagine, Your Highness.’
‘Then I extend an invitation to you, should you wish to prove yourself,’ she replied with cruel glee. ‘Damn yourself. Sail to the New World. Cross the gulf between our realms, if you can find a gate, to the place where both lands exist as one, and then follow the great Orinoco until you reach the confluence with the Caroni. Along that river you will discover the fortress of the Unseelie Court.’
Will felt a squirming sensation deep in his head. He reeled away from the door as his mind’s eye was flooded with a vision of startling richness. At first he struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. A monstrous black spider as big as Hampton Court Palace squatting on a verdant landscape, where green hills rose above the treetops of a mighty forest. Iron cartwheels wider than the grey Thames, revolving within a sphere. And then he found himself looking down on a grim fortress with soaring walls of black basalt and gold.
The Fortress Crepuscule, the Faerie Queen’s voice echoed in his skull. Your kind will always find our home, should that be your wish. But it is much harder to leave.
His gaze drifted down a vertiginous cliff, across a stone labyrinth set in the forest to a high tower with a soft white glow emanating from the summit. He heard himself murmuring, ‘What is that?’
The Tower of the Moon. The beacon that illuminates the way between our worlds. As long as the light shines, the paths remain open.
‘Swyfte!’ Will heard Cecil’s strained voice as if it were rising from a deep well. ‘Take your leave now before she steals your wits!’ The spy snapped out of his delirious vision into the cold grey of the Lantern Tower.
The Queen of the Unseelie Court scraped her nails down the door. ‘While you mortals are base lead, my people are gold.’ For the first time Will heard a hint of yearning in her voice. ‘And our home is gold. A golden city, which the men of that hot land call Manoa. The wonders you would see there, mortal. It would drive you mad.’
‘One day, Your Highness. One day I will sail there and bring the vengeance of the English to your doorstep.’
‘And as your life ebbs away, try to read some meaning in the entrails of your suffering. There will be none.’
Will forced himself to break her spell and turned away from the door. ‘I have purpose in my life, Your Majesty. I will never be deterred from finding the truth.’
‘Truth?’ she repeated with dark humour. ‘Would you know the greatest secret of all? We are all in cells, to greater or lesser extent. This world you see around you is a prison, though the bars and locks are hidden. But who is the gaoler, ask yourself that? And what does it take to escape?’ Her voice grew fainter. Will imagined her drifting away from the door into the confines of her dismal cell. ‘Even as we speak my people rise from their silent chambers under hill and under lake. I hear them in my heart, drawing nearer. One vow is on their lips: to stop you recovering the mad magician, who is your final hope. You will never set sail from this city. You will die here, all of you. The end is close. Say your prayers. Kiss your loved ones. The end is close.’