Mike Shevdon - The Eighth Court

I left them there, jealous of the time Lesley would spend with my son, but knowing I had other things I needed to do so that he could have a home where he could grow up in safety.

I went to my room and collected my sword and a small torch. There was someone who knew more about this than anyone realised, and I was beginning to see a pattern. I needed to talk to Kareesh, and I needed to do it while Blackbird wasn’t around, being protective. I left before Blackbird came back and either insisted on coming with me, or dissuaded me from going at all. Down in the room under the courts where the Way-nodes were, Amber was leaning against a wall when I entered.

“Are you guarding the room, or waiting for me?” I asked.

“Both?” she said.

“Are you going to be following me today?”

“No,” said Amber. “I’m coming with you.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Blackbird said I wasn’t to let you out of the courts alone.”

“Ah,” I said, thinking that maybe she was ahead of me on that one.

“I think she’s gained the impression that since I didn’t let you die I might be able to keep you out of trouble,” said Amber.

“She might be right,” I admitted.

Amber’s expression said otherwise. “Where are we going?”

“To visit an old friend. I need to see Kareesh, but I want to see her alone.”

Amber looked sceptical again. “Are you sure you’re up to seeing an ancient frail fey without an armed escort?”

I was obliged to take the rebuke in good humour, given my success rate, but insisted that I had to see Kareesh alone. “I need to ask her something, and if you’re there, she won’t give me the answer I need,” I explained.

“Just as long as you don’t get hurt,” said Amber. “I’m not delivering you to Blackbird again like last night. It’s not good for my career prospects.”

“You’re looking for promotion?” I asked.

“I’m looking for survival,” she said.

We left the courts and headed out on the Ways towards London, skipping across the nodes until we emerged in a gym in central London. The pumping bass emitted by the sound system and the movement of the people exercising was good cover. No one saw us in the exercise room, and when we emerged we were just another couple leaving the gym club.

We walked together up St Martin’s Lane and onto New Row, the small boutique shops displaying designer shoes, jewellery or framed photos of London with touched-up skylines. Slipping past the Metro supermarket we made our way across the road into Covent Garden proper. Here restaurants offering lunchtime specials were nestled between clothes stores and souvenir shops selling plastic Union flags. The streets were paved in cobbles and pedestrians wandered in the road, heedless of the occasional delivery van.

The entertainers were out in force, competing for the lunchtime crowd, and on the breeze I could hear the high, pure tones of an opera singer, warming up for the evening’s performance by singing to the tourists in the covered market. As we strode up the rise to the tube station, we passed hawkers selling balloons to bright-eyed youngsters, and entertainers who had painted themselves to resemble bronze statues, looking even more frozen than usual. The winter sunshine had tempted out the tourists and the opportunists were determined to make the best of it, no matter the cold.

The wind whistling down Long Acre cut through the pedestrians, making them turn up their collars against the cold. I reached the underground station and we strolled through the ticket gate unheeded, the metal gates flipping open despite the lack of any Oyster card. The lifts were ferrying people up from the tunnels below like workers coming off shift. They spilled out of the station on one side before the doors opened to allow us in for the downward journey.

In the warm air of the tunnels, the air smelled faintly of machine oil and electric sparks. It was easy to hang back and let the other passengers disperse. They marched along down to the platforms while we drifted into the service tunnel between the lift entrances. There was a door there that said Staff Only, and it was a moment’s work to unlock it and let myself through onto the top of the stairway leading down to the service access for the lifts.

“Wait here for me?” I asked Amber.

“Don’t be too long,” she said. “Or I’ll be forced to come and get you.”

I took that as a serious threat, and began to wonder what Blackbird had said to her. The door swung closed and darkness reasserted itself.

The last time I visited here, I was unwelcome. The tunnels had been blank with no stairway rising to a private chamber filled with scented hanging lamps and old rugs. I had been forced to follow the phantom sounds of the person leading me through the tunnels. This time I was hoping for a warmer reception, and an explanation. I was certain now that Kareesh knew more than she was letting on. I also dared to speculate that when Blackbird brought me here, it wasn’t my first visit. The memories from Angela hinted that I’d been here before that, though my own memory of that visit had been wiped from my mind. Kareesh was old, that was obvious, but old didn’t mean weak. The Feyre trod around her as if on eggshells and, if my dreams were correct, that was despite her flouting certain taboos.

I remembered, at my first encounter when Blackbird brought me here, wondering at the difference between Kareesh and Gramawl, and trying to reconcile the huge troll who dedicated himself to guarding and keeping Kareesh in her nest, against the fragile form he guarded. I’d asked Blackbird why he stayed with her and she’d told me that he stayed with her because he loved her. She’d never mentioned that their love was outside the norm, or that others of the Feyre might not approve of a cross-courts relationship, but then she’d grown up with them, an outcast herself. It was something I meant to ask her about when I saw her next.

Conscious that using the shifting light shed by gallowfyre to light my way might be interpreted as a hostile approach, I used my torch, and I made my way down by its beam to the tunnels at the base of the stairs. It struck me then that I’d not noticed before that the rounded arch with its flat floor made the shape of a horseshoe. Was there significance in that or was I starting to see patterns everywhere I looked? I listened intently, aware that I was the visitor here.

“Gramawl?” My voice echoed back from the tunnel. “Gramawl, it’s Niall. I need to talk to Kareesh. Can I see her?” There was no sound in the tunnel except the faded echoes of my voice. “Gramawl?”

Edging into the tunnel, I expected at any moment to see a looming figure emerge from the shadows. My hand drifted unconsciously to the hilt of my sword and I had to will myself to withdraw it. I wasn’t here for a fight, and didn’t want to give that impression. I entered the tunnel one slow step at a time, using the torch to push back the darkness until the turn in the tunnel revealed the side passage with the stairs heading upwards. The entrance to Kareesh’s domain was normally hidden, but perhaps I was welcome here after all.

As soon as I reached the opening I knew something was wrong. When I was here before, the steps had been illuminated by the softest light from above, mixed with the aroma of spices and scented candles. Now the stairs upwards were lit only by the beam of my torch. I took the stairs slowly, my hand now firmly on the hilt of my sword. There was something wrong, I could taste it.

I reached the place where the stairs turned back on themselves and rose to Kareesh’s lair, but there was no light from above. Instead the questing beam of my torch illuminated only the dangling hangings strung from the ceilings in the room above. This room had been like a grotto, with Kareesh at its focus. As I topped the stairs I already knew it was empty. I pushed through the limp hangings, tapping my head against a copper lantern as I ducked through, the darkened lamp gonged dull and soft within the confines of that space. It was immediately apparent to me that it smelled different. Where before there had been musk over new-turned earth, now it smelled stale, lifeless and old. Under the beam of my torch, the hangings were threadbare, and the lanterns mottled with corrosion. I found the nest of cushions where Kareesh had held court. They were scattered listlessly, with no sign of occupation. Kareesh had gone.