‘You’re not telling me that was all in my mind,’ Sophie choked.
‘It was real all right,’ Caitlin said. ‘And we survived.’
After a moment gathering themselves, they started back up the winding stairway. The aroma of incense grew stronger, and eventually the stairway opened out into a room that covered the whole floor at the very top of the tower. Four windows at the cardinal points looked out over the glittering lights of the dreaming city. In front of each sat a creature that resembled an animal, but had the same otherworldly quality as the snakes — a gleam of intelligence in the eye, or an odd movement of the mouth as if it was muttering to itself, or an unusual size.
There was an enormous boar, fat and bristling, its piggy eyes green and furious; a hawk that was almost as big as Sophie; a salmon, again as big as a person, sitting in a large wooden chair, its tail flapping against the wooden floorboards; and a bear, watching them contemptuously. All were fastened in place by an iron chain attached to a ring bolted to the floor. The four beasts radiated an air of menace that made Sophie and Caitlin wary of venturing too close.
Purple drapes covered with gold and silver magical symbols lined the walls between each window, and the floorboards were marked with similar magical symbols. A brazier gave off the heavy incense, while other mystical objects stood around. Several lanterns burning with a dull red light hung on chains from the ceiling; a brass telescope, maps and charts lay on a table, flanked by books and flasks of philtres.
And in the centre of the room, nearly seven feet tall, stood Math. Long black robes covered his entire body and on his head, protruding from a four-holed cowl, was a brass mask with a different face in each of the holes: a boar, a falcon, a salmon and a bear.
‘You survived the test,’ he said from the mask of the boar, with a voice that was strangely gruff. ‘I would have expected no less from a Sister of Dragons. But from a Fragile Creature?’ He tilted the mask towards Caitlin. It would have been easy to wilt under the cold eyes just visible behind it, but Caitlin held her head proudly.
‘We have come to ask a favour of you,’ Caitlin said.
‘A boon?’ Math was clearly intrigued by this. ‘For you — the Fragile Creature?’
‘For my friend,’ Sophie interjected, ‘who was once a Sister of Dragons, too.’
‘Ah.’ The brass mask nodded and Sophie was disturbed to see the real boar at its window nodding in time. Math’s hands protruded from the voluminous sleeves as he brought his fingertips together; they were brown and scabrous, as if they had been severely burned. ‘And what would this boon be?’
‘I wish…’ Caitlin took a breath before steeling herself to continue. ‘I wish to have the Pendragon Spirit within me once again.’
Math grew rigid. With a soft whisper, the mask rotated so that the salmon’s features faced them. When he spoke, his voice had changed, too, and was now soft and liquid, somehow. ‘You ask me to make you a Sister of Dragons again? Impossible! That is a gift that can only come from Existence.’
‘You have to!’ Caitlin’s voice cracked.
The eerie mask turned again until the face of the bear appeared. ‘You dare raise your voice to me!’ Math roared. Caitlin took a step back. Behind Math, the bear was straining at his chain, eager to break free to tear Caitlin to pieces.
Caitlin, though, was undeterred. She looked to Sophie with tears in her eyes. ‘Please.’
‘We’re sorry if we’ve offended you,’ Sophie said. ‘My friend didn’t mean it. She came here because she heard you were the greatest magician in the Court of Soul’s Ease, and if you can’t help her, no one else can.’
There was a long period of silence that ended with the appearance of the falcon’s face. ‘I can petition Existence on your behalf. But there are dangers, even for one such as me. I will demand a fine price to take such a step.’ There was a subtle slyness to his words.
‘Anything,’ Caitlin said before Sophie could stop her.
If she could penetrate the mask, Sophie knew she would see Math smiling. He turned his head in her direction. ‘I ask for very little,’ he said, ‘but it is this: a simple memory from a Sister of Dragons. A precious memory, a rare and unique thing. But it will not be missed.’
Caitlin could now see the danger, but it was too late. ‘I’m the one who should be-’ she began, but Math waved her silent with a burned hand.
He pointed a long, scarred finger at Sophie and said, ‘You must agree. One simple memory.’
‘What does it mean if I give it to you?’ Sophie asked.
‘It will be gone from you for ever, nevermore to be recalled. But what is a memory? An ephemeral thing.’
Sophie’s heart was pounding. ‘Which memory?’ Sophie asked hesitantly.
‘The memory of your first meeting with the one you love.’
‘Oh, no,’ Caitlin moaned.
Sophie felt sick. The image of Mallory sitting with her in a camp in Salisbury flashed through her mind, the smells, the sounds, his expression, the way she had felt disoriented and happy and sexy, realising the near-instant attraction. All that, gone for good; it would be like losing a physical part of her. But then she looked at Caitlin and saw her desolation, and thought of what good they both could do; of the chance they had to save the human race. She didn’t really have a choice.
‘All right,’ she said. She was aware of another secret smile beneath the mask, and then Math reached out his fingers and brushed her forehead. It felt like a steel hook was squirming in her brain. As he pulled back his fingers, there was a flash of intense pain and she screamed. A blue spark followed his fingers. Math guided it to the table where he uncorked a flask. He directed the spark inside before re-corking it hastily.
‘Sophie, thank you,’ Caitlin said. Her face was filled with guilt, but beneath it lay a desperate hope.
Sophie didn’t hear. She was trying to recall her first meeting with Mallory, but there was a horrible black hole in her mind that refused to budge however much she poked and prodded it. And she realised with a note of panic that she no longer knew why she loved Mallory, just that she did; it felt like coming into a movie twenty minutes after the start.
Math made them gather near to him within a protective circle. Candles guttered on the circumference in front of each of the windows. The animals all strained at their chains. Slowly, and with a voice that didn’t appear to come from any of the faces, Math began a chant in a language Sophie and Caitlin didn’t recognise. It hurt their ears when they attempted to focus on any of the words. The god continued for five minutes, his voice rising and falling but growing continually louder. By the end he was shouting so loudly that Sophie and Caitlin covered their ears. A great wind blew into the room, snuffing out the candles’ flames one by one. Each of the beasts began to make a terrible howling sound that could not have come from any animal. The noise rose up to the roof until it seemed to have a life of its own and rushed around the room with the wind. The beasts tore at their chains and threw themselves back and forth in a furious desire to break free.
Math stopped his chanting and pointed out of the western window. ‘Look!’ he roared above the cacophony.
Sophie and Caitlin both turned and, a second later, not knowing what they had seen, they plunged into unconsciousness.
When they awoke, an uncommon stillness lay across the room. The four beasts cowered against the windows and Math was slumped in a chair at the table as if he had no strength left within him.
‘It is as I said: the Pendragon Spirit cannot be brought into this Fragile Creature,’ he said flatly through the falcon mask.
‘That’s it?’ Caitlin said. ‘Then this was all for nothing?’
‘No.’ Math levered himself to his feet, his power slowly returning. ‘There is still hope for you. You are a child of Existence, and like all of your kind you have the potential to be greater. The Pendragon Spirit shall come to you again.’