Robert Carter - The Giants’ Dance

‘I said no throwing!’ Will pointed his staff at the man and he dropped the rock. ‘Or I shall not help you.’

A memory stirred as he caught the latest movement. He was reminded of a candle-blackened roof and hideous faces and winged creatures just like this one. What he had at first taken for carvings had clustered high up among the roof beams of the great chapter house of Verlamion, looking down on him with hungry eyes.

‘Goggly child-stealer!’ a fat woman shouted up at it, wrathfully shaking her fist.

Just then, Duffred came up on a horse. ‘What’s to do here?’ he asked.

Once he had dismounted Will drew him aside out of earshot of the others. ‘What is that thing?’ he asked shading his eyes.

‘Don’t rightly know. But you want to be careful, the folk at Morton Ashley and right down as far as Helmsgrave say these creatures steal newborn babes,’ Duffred murmured.

‘So I’ve discovered.’

The Nadderstone man who had brought Will here joined them, and so did his wife. ‘Gogglies come from a land under the ground.’

‘How do you know that?’ Will asked, a sudden anxiety seizing him.

The man looked back challengingly. ‘Every seven years them gogglies must pay a tithe to the infernal king who lives down below. But it’s a living tithe. They must give over one of their own young – unless they can find a manchild to offer instead.’

‘That’s why they’re always prowling for our young ones,’ the woman said, picking up a stone.

Duffred said quietly, ‘I don’t know if it’s the truth, but it’s what they believe. They all do. When this chapter house was still lived in, the folk hereabouts would bring their children here to have a mark put on their heads – the Rite of Unction they called it. It was supposed to be a protection against these…things.’

Will folded his arms. ‘And was it paid for?’

‘Aye. A gold piece taken from the village coffer.’

He snorted. ‘Gwydion says the Sightless Ones love gold above all else. And that the Elders of the Fellowship delight most in taking it piecemeal from the needy and the credulous.’

‘But is that not a fair exchange?’ Duffred asked. ‘A piece of gold for a charm against evil?’

‘Evil!’ Will gave Duffred a hard look. ‘That is a meaningless word, an idea invented by power-hungry men to enslave folk’s minds. And how many times must it be said: true magic is never to be bought or sold. Don’t you see? The red hands were just squeezing these folk, frightening them into bringing their babes here. Doubtless so they could be registered with a magical mark, one that helps to make recruits of them in later life. Gwydion says the Sightless Ones believe in something very dangerous.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘It’s called the Great Lie.’

Duffred looked unsure and gave the cloister a thoughtful glance. ‘So you’re saying the goggly ain’t a child-stealer after all?’

‘I hardly think so. Look at it, Duff. It’s terrified!’ Will thought of the vent in the cellar under the chapter house and smelled again the strange air that had issued from below.

As he walked towards the tower, one of the skin-like wings flapped pathetically and he knew the creature was in pain.

‘I’m going up there,’ he said, rolling up his sleeves.

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s said they got a poison bite on them!’

‘I’ll bet that’s a lot of nonsense too!’

Inside the tower a few floorboards were still clinging to the beams and three broken and rotting staircases led precariously from one level to the next. Will had to be helped up to the first floor, but then he climbed alone, walking with arms outstretched along the beams, testing his footing with care as he went. Birds had nested here and the rain of several winters had made the walls mossy. When he reached the top he saw marks that showed how the roof of the tower had been deliberately broken with axes and hammers. He looked down from what seemed now to be a dizzying height, and began to edge out along the bare parapet. At last he came to the place where the iron chain was wedged tight in a crevice of the stonework. One of the creature’s ankles was shut in an iron trap, and the ring on the chain that dangled from the trap was fixed through a staple in the masonry.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried not to look down. The sooner he did what he had come to do the better it would be. But when the creature found that he had come close to it, it began to screech. It had big eyes, a broad muzzle and a wide mouth with many needlelike teeth. Its grey fur was threadbare, and its lips were bloodied, which gave it an even more monstrous appearance.

‘Naaw! Naaaw!’ it cried, and tried again to escape, but it could not bite through the chain, nor was it strong enough to pull the ring free, no matter how it tugged.

‘Stop flapping, you foolish beast. There, now,’ he murmured, trying to gentle it. ‘Can’t you see you’re only hurting yourself?’

‘Naaw! Naaaw!’ the thing cried back.

Balancing on top of the parapet was difficult. The masons who had built the tower had made castellations on top, perhaps so that princely armies marching by would believe it was part of a great fortification and so leave it alone. Will sat astride the battlement and inched along the wall. His left leg overhung a sheer drop every bit as far down as the ground beneath the curfew tower at Verlamion. When he came to the iron ring he found it was made fast, and was too strong to break.

He thought about using a spell, but he had no knowledge of the creature’s true name, nor could he say how magic would work upon it. There’s no alternative but to speak calmly to it, he thought, and to try, bit by bit, to tempt it in.

‘Naaaw!’ it screamed when he put his hand on the chain.

There was no trust in the fragile creature. It pulled against his efforts, obstinately hurting itself, and he worried that he might break its leg if he were to pull too hard. It was already in pain, for the rusty teeth of the trap had bitten deep.

‘How long have you been here?’ he asked, leaning out as far as he could. ‘You poor little thing. Are you hungry? I wish I’d brought a sausage or two for you. That might have tempted you down, eh? And by the looks of you you’re parched too. I’ve never seen such a depth of mistrust in any beast. Where did you learn that? Now, if I can only reach out and…’

But when he stretched out his hand towards the trap the creature flapped in a renewed frenzy. It flew at him, and scratched him with its slender claws.

‘Steady…I’m not going to hurt you,’ he muttered, drawing away.

His outstretched fingers trembled as he tried to reach the trap, and perhaps turn it over a little to see how the mechanism worked and how the iron teeth might be parted, but the creature took fright once more. Terror flashed in its eyes. It hissed and lunged, and then sank its teeth into his hand.

A sharp pain shot through him. He stifled a yell, but then the creature pulled back, jerking furiously on the chain in another vain effort to pull itself free. Its claws began to scrabble horribly against the stone, and then it flattened itself on the wall. It shut its eyes and made a horrible face, freezing in an outstretched pose in a last senseless effort to deceive the hunter by playing the gargoyle.

‘Come on! Let’s be sensible now,’ Will said. ‘We both know you’re not a stone carving.’

He hung on to the chain even though he felt the fingers of his other hand sliding. Fear of falling froze him, put a rod of steel in his arm. He summoned the power to ignore pain and the strength of three men to slowly drag himself back. His braids brushed his cheek, and as he came upright he found he was shaking.