Chapter 24: The Forgotten City
Firmly urged forward by Calatin, Igraine ran along the secret corridors underneath the palace. The elven warriors were close on their heels, tortured by their own wish to go back and fight for their prince. But Calatin had made it clear that they had to escape before Ruadan changed his mind and ordered his trolls to kill them all. Although the knights were more than ready to die for Elathan, they agreed that it would be best to leave now and come back to free him later. The prince had told them to protect Igraine no matter what happened to him, and they had to respect his last wish, whether they liked his command or not.
At a bend in the tunnels, the magician told his men that he wanted to speak to Igraine alone, and he sent them ahead. When they were gone, he turned to her with a penetrating look. Breathing heavily from the long run, she leaned against the humid rock of the wall.
“My Lady,” Calatin said, hesitating. “May I ask how far you would go to save Elathan, if there was a possibility?”
Angered, she narrowed her eyes at him. “How dare you ask me such a question, Calatin? You are his best friend. I expected you to know about the bond we share. Do I really have to tell you? I love him. I would readily die if I could save his life.”
He took her hand and raised it to his lips, laughing when she pulled her fingers away. “Forgive me, Igraine. I never questioned your feelings for my Prince, but what I wish you to do is so terrible, so dangerous that Elathan would kill me for it if he knew I asked it of you. I know that I have sworn to protect you. But even if we attack the castle with all our men and peasants who are loyal to the prince, even if my magic was strong enough to bring us right into the inner bailey, there won’t be enough of us to kill all the troll guards and the rest of Ruadan’s followers. We’ll die a noble death in battle for our prince, but it will serve him nothing.
Ruadan can’t be crowned now that Elathan has challenged his right to the throne, so he has to get rid of him quickly. He will be executed in two days. It is the fastest way to get him tried by the elders, who would never condemn a prince without believable proof, even if Ruadan threatened their families. But Elathan has sworn to confess to being guilty in exchange for your safety, and he will keep his word. By law the court of the elders can’t doubt the word of a royal prince, and they will sentence him to death, even if they know that he didn’t kill the king.”
Igraine put a hand over her chest to steady the frantic beating of her heart. “How…” she began, but the rest of the words got stuck in her throat.
“Beheading. With his own sword,” Calatin answered darkly. “It is the most honorable way to die for a noble traitor.”
“Tell me what I can do,” she whispered.
“There is a city which is forgotten by most of the Fae because it is one of the darkest, most dangerous places in all of the Elven Realms. It is inhabited by sinister creatures. They will kill anyone who enters their realm unbidden, tearing him to pieces before he can utter a single word.”
“Then how can I …”
“Gargoyles,” Calatin continued, his eyes holding hers captured. “You wish to ask me why they should let you pass, a human woman? They won’t, for they answer alone to the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, or to his true heir. You are Elathan’s slave of pleasure, Igraine. You have his blood in your veins, since you bonded with him.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “But how will they know that if they don’t even let me speak?”
“They will have to taste his blood in yours when they attack you. If not too many of them wound you at once, you’ll live long enough to let them recognize you as Elathan’s mate. They will let you enter their city then, and you can ask their chieftain for help. They are well versed in the use of magic, so they might even heal you. If we had them on our side, the greatest army couldn’t resist us.”
Igraine almost laughed. Her chances in this mission were nearly nonexistent. She cleared her throat. “So you suggest that I try to enter this city of gargoyles, hold still while they attack me in order to let them draw my blood, all the while hoping that they’ll taste Elathan’s blood in mine? If I survive all this, I am to talk to their chieftain so the gargoyles will help us to fight Ruadan’s guard and free Elathan before he is executed in two days’ time?”
Calatin winced, not able to look into her eyes anymore. “That’s right,” he admitted.
“Sounds great. Now would you please show me the shortest way to this city of gargoyles?”
“The gargoyles will go for your eyes first, Igraine,” Calatin said calmly while created a magic door in the cavern wall, much similar to the one that had led her to the Enchanted Forest. “They like to blind their victims before they go for the kill. And never lie to them, for they will know it and kill you instantly. They can smell your fear when you don’t tell the truth.” Slowly the rock moved aside and gave way to a blinding light, so they couldn’t see what was on the other side. “If it’s necessary, remind them of the oath they swore to the elven kings long ago: That they should help the realm in times of need. In return, they were granted their independence and the right to abide by their own laws as long as they didn’t hurt any Fae.”
It didn’t escape Igraine’s notice that the rule about not hurting anyone obviously wasn’t valid for humans. Shrugging that small detail off, she simply closed her eyes and stepped into the silver light that poured through the opening in the rock. “Farewell, my Lady,” she heard Calatin’s voice behind her, clear but slowly fading away. “We’ll await you in the woods until tomorrow at sundown. After that, we’ll head to the palace to defend our prince, come what may. I’ll pray to the gods for your safe return. You are our only hope now.”
The light was so bright that she was even blinded through closed lids, so she covered her face in her hands. Then, it was gone and a deep darkness surrounded her. When a cool breeze touched her skin, she let her arms fall to her sides. Opening her eyes, everything was black for a moment, but she heard a sound that she had not expected; possibly since she had just been in cave tunnels, deep inside a mountain. It was the song of a night bird.
After a while her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she saw that she was in the open, though she couldn’t see the sky above. She was standing on a narrow forest path, with incredibly high trees growing on either side. Their branches were densely covered with leaves and entwined, so that they formed an arched ceiling, allowing just a hint of light to pass through. Igraine had no choice but to follow the path, stumbling along in the hope that she wouldn’t fall over a root and sprain her ankle or break her leg.
It was highly unlikely that someone would rescue her from this place, and probably better to die all alone than be found by the creatures living in this wood. It was nothing like the Enchanted Forest, where the elms had seemed to welcome their prince and his lover, showering them with golden leaves. Evil penetrated this place, and the trees had something about them that she could only describe as cold, even cruel maybe. A dry laughter escaped her lips. Without realizing it, she had already adapted to the elven way of thinking, even dividing the trees into friendly and hostile individuals.
Finally, she managed to overcome her fears by thinking of Elathan. He was probably locked up in the dungeons under the palace by now, bound by iron chains, maybe even being tortured. Even here – wherever she was - she could feel his presence like the light of an ever-burning candle, deep inside her soul. Although he was far away, she felt his pain, his utter lack of hope. Maybe he even regretted having met her, now that she had brought him into this situation. Still, they were bound to each other, and she knew that his mind was reaching out to her right now, trying to find her in the darkness.
Completely lost in her thoughts, it took her a while to notice that she had left the path and entered a huge clearing. The sky was clear and sprinkled with countless stars. Pale moonlight illuminated a scene that could only have sprung from a lunatic’s nightmare.
Without any doubt, this was the city of the gargoyles, and it looked exactly like a place where those creatures might be comfortable. It was ridiculously logical. Where else could they feel at home?
The clearing, enormous as it was, was crowded with churches, or, more precisely, seven ancient gothic cathedrals, most of them not much more than ruins. Their weathered facades were blackened and overgrown with ivy. Some of the towers had collapsed long ago, their remains not much more than a pile of moss-covered stones. The churches, their sizes ranging from small parish church to medieval cathedral, were placed in an exact circle, their entrances facing an open courtyard in the center. It looked as an old village square, with a stone well and a single, naked tree that looked strangely deformed. It reached out to the heavens with its gnarled, leafless branches like a poor sinner in hell.
Igraine shivered. It took her a while to discover what disturbed her most about the place. It seemed completely impossible that such a city could even exist – she suspected that it had been built with the help of elven magic - but the absence of a single living soul made her blood run cold. She wished to do nothing more but turn around and run for her life, but her resolve made her go forward, step by step, until she stood right in the middle of the churches. For the first time, she dared to lift her gaze, and that’s when she saw them.
The grotesque creatures were everywhere above her, hundreds, maybe thousands. They were guarding their churches, crouching on ledges over doorways, grinning down from roofs and towers. Some of them looked almost human, others like eagles, winged dragons or bats. There were devils and demons in all shapes and sizes, with horns and sharp claws made to rip out their victims’ throats. Unmoving, they looked exactly as the gargoyles she knew from her own world, carved from the same grey stone that formed the walls of the building. Their empty, lifeless eyes seemed to watch her closely.
Too quick for the human eye, the gargoyles came to life and plunged down from the cathedrals, attacking the human who dared to enter their city. She couldn’t even think or scream before she felt their hard, razor-sharp beaks and claws, cutting through skin and flesh, ready to tear her into pieces. The only sound she heard was the flapping of their wings while they encircled her, so many at the same time that her vision went dark. During her walk along the forest path, she had repeated Calatin’s advice over and over again in her thoughts to stop herself from panicking, so now she automatically protected her face with her arms.
Not my eyes, she thought. I’ll die, but please don’t let them pick out my eyes. When the gargoyles started to tear out small pieces of flesh from her shoulders and back, Igraine opened her mouth to scream. She felt a hot liquid running over her back and realized that it was her own blood. It’s over. His blood is long gone from mine. She remembered that human blood renewed itself regularly, but how often? Wouldn’t her immune system destroy the elven blood at once anyway? She knew that such thoughts were totally pointless while being killed by gargoyles, but at least they helped her to separate her mind from the pain.
All at once, it was over. She hardly realized that they had stopped attacking her when she felt a fire burning her skin, digging itself deeper into her wounded flesh. Poison, she thought. Their fangs were poisoned. Face down, she fell to the forest floor and turned onto her side, rolling into a ball like a hurt child. "Elathan," she whispered. His name was like a fiery inscription in the ever-growing darkness while she drowned in it, holding to the one word with all her strength.
Then, nothing mattered anymore as she drifted off into eternal night.