Part 34 (1/2)

A dozen steps, then a sharp turn, then five more. Galen descended carefully; they dared send no faerie light with him, and he hadn't thought to ask for a candle. The chamber at the bottom was stiflingly close, almost small enough to span with his arms. The ceiling curved into a shallow dome, with a round opening in the center. By the faint light filtering in from above, Galen positioned himself beneath the opening, and looked upward.

The sun-gold sheathing the walls, marked with alchemical symbols, was invisible in the gloom. Through the opening, though, he could see the stairs, curving around and around, more than three hundred steps in total. The hatch at the top, concealed within the urn, was still closed. But soon enough the von das Tickens would open it, and then he would look through the lenses and mirrors to the comet whose return Halley had predicted more than fifty years ago.

He would see the Dragon, and the Dragon would see him.

The warmth of the sun-gold did not touch the coldness inside. Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d had prepared him inside the Calendar Room: congelation, distillation, fermentation, conjunction, separation, dissolution. Alchemical processes, their order reversed, while Galen purged all things of fire from his body and spirit. There was no anger in him, no desire for action; he was an empty vessel, awaiting the annihilating light.

But fear was not a thing of fire. And so the fear remained.

Three hundred steps and more, a spiral path to Heaven. Galen stood in the darkness below. It was fitting, really. Irrith's words had cut deeply because they were true. All of this had come about because he loved Lune. Because of her, he returned to London, following his heart instead of his duty to his family. Because of her, he searched the city high and low until he found a door to her hidden realm. He accepted the t.i.tle of Prince, which he never deserved to bear; he betrayed the loyalty he owed to Delphia, in spirit if not in deed. None of it was righteous. And now he sought his own death.

I am d.a.m.ning myself to h.e.l.l.

No priest's absolution could change that. No penance in advance could ameliorate the sin committed afterward, the willing suicide. The Dragon's fire would be only a foretaste of the fires that waited for him after judgment. Irrith was right about every part of it.

Yet here he stood, beneath the Monument, hearing the metallic clang of the dwarves working high above. Because when Irrith left him, he stood in the silence of his chambers, tears wet on his face, and he thought about London, and the Onyx Court. Fae and mortals who would suffer, perhaps die, if the Dragon were not stopped. The Goodemeades and Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d. Edward and Mrs. Vesey. Lady Feidelm, Wrain, Sir Peregrin Thorne. His sisters. Delphia. Irrith.

Lune.

If he refused this choice, then they all burnt. Better to die now than to let that happen.

Even if it meant going to h.e.l.l.

He accepted it, embraced it, clasped the notion to him with desperate strength, lest his nerve break and he flee. Light flooded down the shaft: the hatch was open. The gold about him began to glow, alchemical emblems glittering with cold radiance, turning the chamber into a trap, and a vessel of transformation. Galen flung his arms wide, flung his head back, stared up toward the waiting sky.

Come on. Come to me. Let us be each other's death.

His entire body was shaking, trembling like a leaf in the wind. Tears ran down his face, and he clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached with the strain. This is it. My last moment, and I'm weeping, because I'm going to h.e.l.l-oh, This is it. My last moment, and I'm weeping, because I'm going to h.e.l.l-oh, G.o.d- G.o.d- He could see nothing through the tears. But he felt the moment the connection formed: a terrible awareness, inhuman beyond anything the Onyx Hall contained. Vast, and distant, but filled with a malevolence that did not forget. The clouds had broken, and the comet blazed in the sky, and the Dragon saw him. saw him.

His own keening filled his ears. G.o.d, please save me, Christ, oh G.o.d, please save me, Christ, oh Christ- Christ- Light pierced the sky, a lance from horizon to lens to mirror, downward through the pillar, and Galen screamed.

All of them flinched when the scream came. It tore into Irrith like a serrated knife, a sound no mortal throat should produce, a sound that would stay with her until the end of her immortal span.

And then it stopped.

She blinked away the ghost of that flaring light and saw the spear-knights set themselves, great pike of ice raised. No one knew for sure what would happen now. The simple fact of being bound to mortality might kill the Dragon on the spot-or flames might come pouring out the door, the pillar itself exploding into a hail of shattered stone, as the golden prison failed and the beast broke free. They had to wait, until their enemy emerged or enough time had pa.s.sed that someone dared brave the interior, descending to see if Galen St. Clair was dead.

Noise from inside: the scuff of a shoe, short gasps of breath. And then Galen stumbled out the door and staggered down the two steps, falling on his knees before them.

Sir Peregrin stood with one fist raised, ready to give the signal.

Galen's voice was a ragged thing, torn by his unbearable scream. ”Where did it go?” ”Where did it go?”

Irrith's heart thumped painfully in her chest. The spear-knights were too disciplined to look away from the body they expected to be their target, but Peregrin's gaze snapped to Lune, who stood well back, one hand pressed to her breast. The Queen wet her lips, lowered her hand, and said, ”What do you mean? What happened?”

Galen shook his head. His fingers splayed hard against the paving-stone, knuckles white. ”I don't know. It came down the pillar-I felt it-then through through me.” His body twisted in a half cough, half retch. ”I think it went down. Into the Calendar Room.” me.” His body twisted in a half cough, half retch. ”I think it went down. Into the Calendar Room.”

Which lay directly below the Monument. Horror rose like bile in Irrith's throat. What little color was in the Queen's face drained away. It wasn't a proper entrance, not like the others; that opening only admitted moonlight, the ray from which the great clock's pendulum hung. The Dragon shouldn't have been able to escape that way.

Shouldn't and and couldn't couldn't were two different things. were two different things.

Breath drawing in a sharp gasp, Lune closed her eyes, no doubt seeking within. She shook her head. ”It's too difficult to sense from up here. The Calendar Room doesn't exist entirely within the Hall. We have to get below. If we can trap it there-”

Peregrin was already snapping orders. The guards on the entrances, under Segraine's command, must draw inward like a net, seeking to catch the Dragon if it escaped the Calendar Room. Cerenel and the other spear-knights set off for the Billingsgate entrance at a run.

Lune hesitated. Her eyes were open again, and they rested on Galen, still hunched on the ground before the Monument. He had one palm braced against his thigh, trying to rise, but his entire body shook with the effort.

He was no longer Prince. If Lune had to summon the power of the Onyx Hall against the Dragon, he could do nothing to help her. He couldn't even stand, let alone fight.

Yet he was trying to rise.

Irrith stepped forward and faced the Queen. ”I'll carry him if I have to. You get below. Galen and I will find you there.”

One curt nod; that was all Lune could spare. Then she hiked up her skirts and ran.

”Can you make it to Billingsgate?” Irrith asked, alone with Galen in the Monument Yard. ”Or do I have to carry you after all?”

He'd forced himself to his feet, but still stood half-bent, shoulders trembling. In the privacy of her mind, Irrith placed a wager on ”carry.” But Galen shook his head. ”Not Billingsgate.”

”What?”

Another wracking cough. When it ended, Galen rasped, ”Have to defend from the center. London Stone. It's an entrance, too. Might still answer to me.”

An entrance. She shouldn't be surprised: that was the central point, where faerie and mortal London merged into one. Galen was already staggering past the Monument's base, stumbling like a gin-soaked beggar, but moving with speed. The mortal face of the London Stone was almost as close as Billingsgate. Irrith hurried after him, flinging a concealment over them both, so that no one would try to stop the half-dressed man and the faerie that was chasing him.

They dodged the carts and carriages, sedan chairs and people on foot that still crowded Fish Street Hill, then turned onto the lane that became Cannon Street a little farther down. Irrith could see the spire of St. Swithin's up ahead, hard by the Stone, which lay now on the north side of the street. They were almost there when Galen's foot caught against something in the muck and he went down again, collapsing heavily to the ground.

”Hang your pride,” Irrith muttered, and caught up to the fallen man. She could at least support him, if not carry him. Before Galen could protest, she slipped one arm under his chest and lifted him to his feet.

His skin burnt hot through the thin fabric of his s.h.i.+rt.

”You're feverish,” she said, foolishly-and then she saw his eyes.

Pupil, iris, and white: all gone, replaced by blazing flame.

Instinct sent her leaping backward, an instant before his hand could close on her throat. Curses flooded through her mind, panicked and incoherent. This wasn't the Dragon they'd fought before, the ravening, near-mindless beast, its cunning limited only to destruction. No, they'd given it a human mind, a clever one. A mind that knew all about the Onyx Hall: not just its power but its secrets, from the Calendar Room to the truth of the London Stone.

The beast that wore Galen's body shuddered, an inhuman, spine-twisting ripple. Irrith flinched on instinct, remembering that motion from the infernal days of the Fire- But nothing happened.

She smelled smoke, the dreadfully appealing scent of meat on the spit-but no flames leapt out at her. The blazing eyes widened. Then the Dragon, realizing its powers were limited by human flesh, did the only thing it could.

It ran for the Stone.

Irrith hurled herself after. She was the faster of the two, and knocked her quarry sprawling a second time. They narrowly missed a maid, sleepily yawning her way down the dark street. An inhuman snarl rose from Galen's throat, and a foot slammed into her face, hard enough that Irrith saw stars. She rolled free, then forced herself to her feet once more, because a single thought survived the impact of his foot: I have to keep it from the Stone. I have to keep it from the Stone.

They were already at Abchurch Lane. Irrith s.n.a.t.c.hed out one of her pistols and fired, but running spoiled her aim; her shot chipped the front of a shop. Swearing, she dragged out the other and halted for an instant, concentrating on Galen's back.

Her second shot flew more true-but not true enough. It struck his hip, spinning him into the brick wall at his side, scarcely three paces from his goal.