A Star Shall Fall Part 34

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-Rashid 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-Rashid. 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 shirt.

"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.

Irrith was already running again. She dropped both spent pistols to the ground and drew her last weapon, the knife of jotun ice. He knocked her aside as she came near, but the blow served her purposes well enough; it threw her that last bit of distance, putting her between Galen and the London Stone.

No. It isn't Galen. Galen died inside the Monument.

But to her horror, she saw something of him in the twisted snarl on his face. "Irrith," he said, spitting her name like a curse. "Traitor one day, faithful the next. Can't you change your mind one more time? For me?"

She tightened her grip on the knife. Its cold seared her hand; the Dragon kept well clear of it as he pushed himself away from the wall. His shirt was beginning to smoke, tiny flames curling up where his skin pressed against the fabric. "Odd," she said breathlessly, trying to delay long enough for her still-spinning head to settle. The Stone was a hard presence just behind her back. If he got so much as a finger on it... "You know the things Galen knows-knew-and yet you don't know me at all."

He laughed, and the sound itself burnt her. "Don't I? I know you're a coward. You could have loved me, but you were too afraid. Not of the grief-of the possibility that your love would never be returned. That even that ultimate gift couldn't draw me away from my hopeless devotion to Lune, and you would be left as I was, groveling after someone forever out of your reach."

"Don't say that word," Irrith snarled, past the choking knot in her throat. "I. You aren't Galen." You aren't Galen."

"Half of me is."

"The body means nothing."

"All of the body; half of the spirit. That's what the alchemy meant, Irrith. A wedding of two separate spirits into one, cleaving unto each other like man and wife. Though in this case, the man is is the wife." The Dragon twisted Galen's mouth into a travesty of a smile. "He welcomed the fire in like a demon lover." the wife." The Dragon twisted Galen's mouth into a travesty of a smile. "He welcomed the fire in like a demon lover."

Fire that was burning his body up from the inside. They weren't wrong; the conjunction had weakened the Dragon. Might even kill it, in time. But how long would that take?

She saw again the terror in Galen's face, as he went to his death. Walking into h.e.l.l with his eyes wide open. Walking into h.e.l.l with his eyes wide open. Could the torments of d.a.m.nation be any worse than this, his spirit shackled to a creature that would destroy those he loved? Could the torments of d.a.m.nation be any worse than this, his spirit shackled to a creature that would destroy those he loved?

As if it could read her thoughts, the Dragon grinned and spread Galen's arms wide. "Do you think death will free him? We are one spirit now. Kill him, send him to h.e.l.l, and I will go with him, for I am am Galen St. Clair." Galen St. Clair."

They both lunged.

The Dragon was ready for Irrith, because it knew her, as Galen had known her. One searing arm came across to block her thrust. But Galen knew weapons as a gentleman did, with rules and courtesy and honor, and he couldn't block what he didn't expect.

Irrith's right hand was knocked out of line-but the knife wasn't there anymore. Their joined momentum brought them crashing together hard, her slight weight against Galen's searing body, and her left hand brought the blade up and into his chest.

They staggered, scant inches from the Stone. Then Irrith set her feet and drove him back, slamming his rigid frame against the brick wall behind. Elemental ice and elemental fire warred, sending waves of heat and cold radiating outward, until she wanted to scream and flee to safety. But she hung on, sinking the knife hilt-deep into his ribs, glaring into those eyes of flame, until the light in them flickered and died, leaving behind pits of black ash. When Irrith let go, the body fell limply to the ground. The knife-hilt clattered free, its blade melted away.

She stood gasping, shaking, staring at the corpse of Galen St. Clair.

His blind face seemed to stare at her in accusation. Pain twisted inside her, sharper than the vanished knife. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't love you-I I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't love you-I couldn't. couldn't.

If she had loved him, she could never have killed him.

Slowly Irrith became aware of eyes on her. No one stood near, but mortals were watching from a safe distance, peering through shutters and half-cracked doors, whispering to each other in the shadows. From farther off she heard shouts and running footsteps: a constable, no doubt. Her concealment had fallen at some point, and now she stood over a dead man's body, with her faerie face bared to the world.

She could not leave him there, lying in the filth of the street. Clenching her jaw, Irrith bent and took hold of Galen's lifeless, unresisting hand. With an effort, she heaved him over her shoulder, then built another concealment for them both. It was hard, with so many people watching, but the darkness helped; she slipped away down Cannon Street, carrying the dead Prince, taking him home to rest.

The Onyx Hall, London: May 1, 1759 Fae knew little of funerals. Those mortals who died among them were generally deposited back in the world they'd come from, in their beds or in a gutter, according to the kindness of the one who put them there. The fae did not bury their own dead. There was no need, when their bodies fell so soon to nothingness, the spirits that shaped them gone to oblivion.

The Princes of the Stone were always returned to their families, to be buried with Christian rites. Only Michael Deven lay interred in the ground of the Onyx Hall, beneath a stand of ever-blooming apple trees in the night garden, forever close to the faerie Queen who loved him.

Michael Deven-and now Galen St. Clair.

For him, the fae gathered in solemn observance, lining the path through the night garden. Or at least as close to solemnity as they could manage: some were puzzled by this semimortal ceremony, and some showed too-sharp curiosity in his death, fascinated by the experience that came among them so rarely. But knights of the Onyx Guard stood sentinel along the path, and Bonecruncher's loyal goblins lurked behind; anyone who thought to profane the Prince's funeral vanished instantly from view, with a minimum of fuss.

The pall-shrouded bier came through the arch, borne on a tatterfoal-drawn open carriage. Preceding it was an honor guard of five elf-knights and one half-mortal valet; Edward Thorne and his father Sir Peregrin led the way, side by side. The plaintive sound of a flute threaded through the quiet air, marking time for their slow procession. Fae knelt as they went by. The bier crossed the Walbrook, pa.s.sed under the drooping branches of willow trees, and came among new mourners: the mortals of the Onyx Hall, all those who had been under Galen's authority as Prince. They rarely gathered in one place, those mortals, and made an odd a.s.sortment standing together. Men of all cla.s.ses, from the wealthy through to lawyers and artisans, laborers and the humble poor. Women, some beautiful, some scarred by disease. Old and young, and a large knot of children, lured away into a realm of wonder, their eyes wide as they watched grief go by.

At last the procession reached its end: the obelisk listing Princes of the Stone. A small flame burnt in its base, and a new line had been chiseled into the plaque:

Mr. Galen St. Clair 17561759 A small group waited there. Mrs. Vesey supported Delphia St. Clair, who wore mourning sewn for her by the finest faerie seamstresses. Lune stood alone, dressed in the same white she wore every October, when she came to grieve for Michael Deven.

And Irrith, clad in green, the executioner attending the funeral.

The honor guard lifted the carriage's burden down to the gra.s.s. Irrith stared at the pall draped over the coffin, grateful for its presence. She preferred to remember the man she'd first seen, extending his hand to the muddy, swearing sprite who had just fallen through the Newgate entrance; but every time she blinked, she saw the gaping voids of Galen's eyes, burnt out by the Dragon. And nothing could block her ears to the memory of that searing voice, taunting her with the inexorable truth. Kill him, send him to h.e.l.l, and I will go with him, for I Kill him, send him to h.e.l.l, and I will go with him, for I am am Galen St. Clair. Galen St. Clair.

They had saved the Onyx Hall, but nothing could rob the beast of that victory.

Galen's family would bury a manikin disguised as their son and brother, thinking Galen the victim of some illness or misfortune. Irrith hadn't inquired after the lie. There would be Christian rites then, but they could hardly say any here, in the heart of the Onyx Hall. Delphia had not pressed for any. She understood what this court had meant to Galen, and where he would wish to be buried.

Once the bearers folded the pall and retired into a line, Lune came forward, and laid her hand upon the gra.s.s.

They weren't certain if she could do this, without a Prince's aid. It might come to shovels after all, the indignity of digging a grave and piling the dirt atop the coffin. The Hall answered to Queen and Prince together, a faerie and a mortal. But either Lune could in this small way command it alone, or the palace recognized the interment of its former master, for after a few breathless moments, the bier began to sink beneath the earth. The gra.s.s closed over the coffin's lid, and still the Queen knelt; then, at last, she let her breath out and stood.

No more ceremony than that-but Lune looked to each of them, and repeated the words she'd spoken in the great presence chamber. "Remember him."

Irrith, hearing the Dragon's laughter in her mind, wished she could forget.

Word came that evening, from someone's mortal pet: a Londoner named John Bevis had sighted the comet on the night of April thirtieth.

The people of London had all but forgotten Halley's prediction. Their fears of fiery demise had flared too soon, sparked by the false alarm of the comet two years ago; the ongoing inability of their astronomers to sight the returning comet had slain the last of their fears. It was just a star now, trailing its diminished tail, an object of astronomical curiosity and little more.

The message was brought to Lune in her privy chamber, where she sat with only the Goodemeades for company. Most of her court was above, in the Moor Fields, celebrating May Day and their release from fifty years of fear. No Sanist concern kept Lune below, not this time; she simply could not join their revelry. Not while she wore her gown of mourning white.

She thanked the usher who brought the message and dismissed him, then lapsed once more into silence.

The two brownies had kept her company before, permitting her quiet and melancholy when she needed it. If they spoke, it was because they thought it necessary. Still, that didn't prevent a surge of resentment when Gertrude said, "You should go to them."

Leaving aside the fact that she didn't wish to go anywhere at all-"Them?"

"Irrith and Delphia."

Lune pa.s.sed one weary hand over her eyes. "Mrs. St. Clair will not wish to see me, I think, nor anyone of this world. Not after what we've done to her husband."

"Then you haven't come to know her very well," Rosamund said. "She's here, in the Onyx Hall. Right now. But if you leave her alone, then pretty soon you'll lose her. And Irrith's thinking of leaving for the Vale. So if you want to keep either of them in your court, you should go to them."

The Goodemeades were the only two who could speak so bluntly to her. The two of them, and the Prince of the Stone. Galen never availed himself of that privilege, too awed by her-too worshipful-to presume such familiarity. She'd hoped that in time his awe would fade to something more comfortable.

But his time was cut too short.

"Find them," Lune said. "We will meet in private."

The parlor of Galen's chambers still lay as it had days before, with chairs turned toward the hearth, a book open facedown on a table, fragments of porcelain strewn across the floor. It was easy to believe the Prince might walk through the door at any moment. Coming here was painful, but Lune thought it the right choice. There was no hiding from his ghost. Better to face it directly.