Ethine Ch. 02

Together with a quiet, thoughtful Gilraen he made his way to the hall, settling by the bar with a fruit cordial. Around the hall he counted nearly thirty knights, practically Sorrow's entire complement. He had other soldiers, of course, various hobgoblins, ogres, trolls, hobs and the like. But only gentry became knights and it was only the gentry here tonight, the others given the duties that the knights couldn't cover tonight - some on the perimeter, others in the city.

Reluctantly he had to admit that Sorrow's boys were an effective looking crew, there was a cold professionalism about them that wouldn't have looked out of place amongst the Seelie or Unseelie Courts. For the first time he had serious doubts that his plan would work.

As he'd expected he'd not been asked to join the troop protecting Sorrow, that duty was being reserved for more highly regarded knights - felt like that was becoming a real theme in his life. Like the other un-chosen knights he had been instructed to guard the house and, if necessary, be prepared to act on instructions. In effect this meant pulling a couple of roving guard duties, then loitering about the hall waiting to help if needed. He fingered the cellphone in his pocket, holding it burnt his fingers and even having it in his pocket was uncomfortable, but his entire plan depended on its use.

"Would you have killed me?" Gilraen asked.

"What?"

"Back in the apartment, would you have killed me?"

Calan looked at him, he looked decidedly green.

"No, Gil, I wouldn't. Monster thought it might be necessary, he was out of order."

If anything Gilraen looked worse than ever. Sudden suspicion kindled in Calan's heart.

"Gil, what have you done?" he said, standing.

"Calan, I didn't... I never..." he looked stricken. "I'm sorry."

He felt people behind him, heard footsteps approaching. Knew what he would see before he turned around.

"I told you I didn't trust you, didn't I?" Thorn said.

Calan turned. There were four of them, two wearing brightly coloured business suits - yellow and red - with matching shirts and ties, two in regulation pinstripe, but that wasn't what stopped him. Behind them Thorn held a petrified Ethine by her hair, her head twisted back exposing her long, white neck. In Thorn's other hand he held a naked sabre, the threat too obvious to state.

Calan sighed, dropping his sabre to the floor. He saw Ethine flinch at the sound, tears trickling along her cheeks.

It'll be okay, he wanted to say. To mumble some small words of comfort to her, to make the pain, the despair in her eyes go away. But he was fay, he couldn't lie.

"I don't think we'll be meeting again, Calan," Thorn said. "Nor do I think you'll be having a nice day or faring well, so I shall wish neither of those upon you. In fact there is only one thing I can say to you that seems appropriate - die well."

"If I survive this, Thorn, I'll wish you the same, I promise you that."

Thorn laughed. "Forgive me if I don't start shaking in fear."

With Ethine threatened he was afraid to defend himself, forcing himself to stand passive as yellow suit punched him in the gut with pile driver force, dropping him helplessly to his hands and knees with a sickening grunt of exhaled breath. He wasn't given time to recover. As one they started kicking him, stamping down so that it was all he could do to crawl into a ball, covering his head with his hands as they pounded on his defenceless body.

He heard himself groaning, gasping with pain, heard something crack - a rib? - the sound of heavy breathing, aggressive comments mumbled under their breath as they kicked him and, worst of all, away in the distance, the sound of Ethine screaming.

Eventually everything went black.

******

Terror crouched in the dark shadows of Mulayly Park, watching the moon rise slowly into the sky. Calan was late.

Around him a gentle susurration of conversation continued, the gathered exiles crouching low in the shadows, moonlight glinting gently from weapons, jewellery, clothing. It was only the second time that he had seen so many exiles in one place, the soldiers of a dozen 'courts' come together in one place. The last time was for Roiben, for his offer of sanctuary. This time it was for a baser motive - self-preservation.

They were an eclectic bunch. Trolls with meat-cleavers and baseball bats, goblins with jagged daggers of glass, hobs with razor studded bicycle chains and spiked knuckle-dusters, gentry with gently curving sabres, dozens of them, from courts all through the city.

The exiles were already frightened of Sorrow, the thought of his ambitions bringing him directly into the city had them really scared. When Calan had offered them the chance to strike back, to strike a deadly blow in Sorrow's own Court they had seized it like drowning men - uniting again under Terror's honest-broker leadership with bloody vengeance on their minds.

Before them lay the back entrance to Sorrow's court, the rotting stump of an old tree, partially hidden beneath fallen leaves. They couldn't see the actual building itself through the trees, behind the buildings, the raised railway and roads in-between - but its presence seemed immediate, nevertheless, as if it radiated influence as a coal gave off heat: the palace of the Bronx.

Soon. Soon, thought Terror, his eye on the cellphone set on the stump before him.

******

Ethine watched them beat Calan to death - a pitiful, wailing scream burning her throat, tears flooding down her cheeks - held helpless in Thorn's cruel grasp. After he stopped moving, Thorn lost interest, dragging her by her hair over to the low dais set in the middle of the floor, thrusting her down onto a chair beneath the spreading limbs of the tree.

She sobbed pitifully, struggling to breathe - the knowledge of losing Calan leaving her utterly bereft, lost. Her hand drifted to her blouse, Calan's knife was still in place. Perhaps she could kill Thorn, she thought, kill him before they killed her.

Through her tears she saw the yellow and red knights moving the rest of the furniture out of the way, the chairs, a table - clearing a space in the centre before a seat cut into the tree. She watched as two other knights carried a large free-standing mirror with an ebony frame to the dais. They were holding it gingerly as if it were a dangerous animal that might turn on them at any moment. With exaggerated care they set it on the dais in the centre of the cleared area, scuttling back from it as soon as it was steady.

Ethine noticed that the glass was black, a sinister aura clinging to it like a bad smell. As she stared at it she had the sense that something else was staring back - something infinitely cruel, infinitely evil. Hurriedly she looked away.

A short time later she saw Sorrow enter the hall, coming through the door to the prison, the fox-faced Memory following close behind holding a large leather bound book - the book with the names in it, she now knew. The two of them mounted the low dais, followed by a group of knights - about ten in total, she thought.

Sorrow approached the mirror, showing none of the horror or trepidation that his knights had shown. He ran his hands around the frame, caressing it almost. Standing next to her she felt Thorn tense, obviously uncomfortable.

For a time Sorrow peered into the mirror, his hand resting delicately on its glossy surface, then something changed. Ethine gasped - slowly, imperceptibly at first, the glass was going dull, its glossy shine replaced by a swirling opaque mist. It appeared first at the point touched by Sorrow then spread slowly like smoke across the whole glass, twisting as if blown by some unnatural wind.

Sorrow smiled. "It is time."

Thorn made a sharp gesture and the yellow knight approached the glass, reaching out to it nervously. To Ethine's surprise his hand slipped through the glass as if he touched nothing more than a bank of mist. Slowly he stepped through and disappeared.

Thorn nodded and the red knight followed him through.

A few seconds later the red knight re-appeared, stepping from the glass. "My Lord, all is clear."

Sorrow nodded, the red knight stepping back through the glass, followed by the black suited troop of ten, their sabres drawn. Thorn grabbed her hair once again, pulling her to her feet and propelling her toward the glass.

For a second he stood before it, staring into its swirling depths, then with a brutal shove he pushed her through. Despite what she'd seen she flinched slightly as she reached the glass, her body unconsciously bracing for impact. The mist gave way around her. It wasn't completely insusbstantial. More like water, she thought - parting drily around her body as she passed through. She felt a momentary chill, raising goosebumps on her skin, then she stepped out onto a clearing at the entrance to a wide gully.

It was night, full dark, the only light coming from the full moon risen above them, painting everything monochrome - the shadows deep where its light didn't penetrate. Before her, at the far side of the clearing, the gully stretched away into the distance - resembling the overgrown remnant of an old railway cutting, though Ethine knew that no line had ever marked its path. Along its side and around the clearing trees growing thickly above them. There was no wind, no cloud - the stars intensely bright overhead - a smell like damp, like vegetation. Other than the noises made by their small group it was absolutely quiet - unnaturally so, she thought.

Thorn stepped through right behind her, taking her arm and pushing her to one side. Sorrow and Memory were the last through, stepping from the glass behind them.

The knights spread out in a circle about them, forming a boundary. Thorn and the red and yellow knights remained close to Sorrow and Memory - and her, she thought. From this side, she noticed, the glass didn't look exactly as it did from the other - on this side it was no more than a freestanding block of mist.

For a while there was nothing. The knights looking about curiously, Sorrow and Memory conferring in quiet tones. Thorn was gripping her arm so tightly he was cutting off the circulation to her hand. Then, faintly at first, she heard the sound of something in the distance; in the distance but coming closer. Over the oppressive silence of the gully a high pitched wailing noise rose - discordant, unpleasant, but becoming clearer with every passing second. As the sound grew louder it was clear that the others heard it too, conversation stilling, silence falling on the group. Thorn gripped her arm harder than ever, making her wince with the pain - but he was paying no attention to her.

From the far end of the gully she saw movement, slow, measured, gradual but inexorable, a wall of mist was approaching - rolling over the ground, filling the gully completely from side to side so that it seemed as if the gully itself was being consumed by the roiling cloud. Above, the moon was still bright, its light illuminating the approaching cloud so that it seemed to glow with a strange sepulchral light. The sounds, more recognisable now as a strange, lilting music - rich with alien melodies, emanated from within the cloud. To Ethine there was something sinister about its slow, measured progress - something that made her horribly reluctant to enter its borders.

Clearly feeling as she did, the knights on the perimeter began to unconsciously draw together - reducing the circle - but so transfixed by the approaching scene were they that nobody seemed to notice.

A cold wall of damp air reached them first, sweeping over them as the mist began to drift about them. Small tendrils at first, washing coldly about their feet, drifting lightly between them, touching them with a chill dampness. Seemingly in no time, yet without perceptible haste, the cloud thickened, about them - becoming so thick that they struggled to see even as far as the knights forming the perimeter.

Worse, peering into the thickening mist, Ethine was certain she could see figures moving about - horrible, hunched things, their shapes hidden and distorted by the thick fog. She huddled back against Thorn, moving to ensure that she could see the portal still, her hand gripping Calan's knife through the fabric of her shirt.

Very quickly the mist shrouded them completely, blinding them even to their neighbour's presence. The knights started calling to one another, voices nervous, moving closer together, closing the circle until they were all stood practically shoulder to shoulder, huddled like a knot about the almost invisible looking glass.

And, unnoticed in the swirling maelstrom, the Hag's Court had arrived.