…or he had lain within the heart of the Troy Game so close to death that there was no difference…
…now his stride extended effortlessly, and he was not aware at all of the ground beneath his feet although he knew he still ran the Ringwalk.
He felt…alive. Aware. Knowing. Energised. Brimming with promise and life and magic and wonder.
Ready.
He leapt, and as he leapt, so worlds cascaded past under his feet, and the sun bowed in homage at his passage.
Noah stood at the doorway to what the White Tower had become—the living Great Founding Labyrinth. Her figure slim and lithe two months after the birth of her baby, her face calm, focussed, beautiful, Noah was dressed in nothing but an ankle-length white linen skirt.
Her hair was left unbound down her back, her arms and hands and neck were bare of any jewellery, her lovely face was left unpainted.
Around them walked the officers and men of the Tower of London engaged in their normal duties.
None saw anything save two women strolling arm in arm slowly about the grounds.
Noah stood, regarding the doorway of the Great Founding Labyrinth. The tower rose above her, huge, threatening, throbbing with a thundery dark blue glow.
“Enter,” said Ariadne. “If you do not survive I will look after your baby for you.”
Noah gave a little smile. “She shall know no mother but me, Ariadne.” Then she looked back at the doorway, her face relaxing, concentrating.
After a moment of almost complete stillness, Noah’s hand went to the linen wrap bound about her waist, and with a swift, economical movement she undid it, and discarded the wrap.
Naked, she stepped into the Great Founding Labyrinth.
His stride fed by his joy, the Stag God stretched out his legs, and bounded over hill and dale, meadow and crag. This was his land, and he could have burst for joy of it. As he ran, memories and images jumbled about in his mind: running as a fawn through the forest; his hand, forcing the arrow into his father’s eye; mating the doe that stood silent and waiting in the dappled shade; standing before the girl called Cornelia, but knowing, this time, what and who she was to him; dancing in complex steps through passages of darkness; juggling golden limb bands until they spun in an intricate dance through the great spread of his blood-red antlers.
Below him, man and beast alike raised their eyes skyward, and gasped.
Noah walked into the Great Founding Labyrinth without hesitation. She had done this so many times now that it was second nature to her, and she paid no mind to the swirling stairs and ladders and passages, the promises and delusions that power sent to disarm her. Instead she reached out with her own power, and began slowly to spiral in the entwined energies of tide and river, star and moon, bowel and seashell until she had surrounded herself with a pulsating ball that consisted of myriad lines of light and power. This was the labyrinth, that which bound all life from birth to death, and which, now, Noah sought to bend to her own will.
Be as I am, she whispered to it. Do as I will.
Instantly, every one of the myriad lines of light and power turned black, and the ball which surrounded Noah solidified into a mass of darkness, and hid her from life. Breath. Existence.
Everything.
In the king’s great audience chamber of Whitehall Palace the furniture had been pushed against the walls, the carpet had been rolled away, the shutters closed and bolted, the doors likewise. Two lone lamps glowed on opposite walls. The space of the chamber had been bared, and in its centre sat a Circle, its members sitting cross-legged, their hands clasped, their heads slightly bowed in concentration.
The Lord of the Faerie’s presence dominated the Circle, the deference of every other member indicated by subtle body language and facial expression.
Previously, Charles had led Circles composed only of himself, Marguerite, Kate and sometimes Louis.
Now, the Lord of the Faerie convened a Circle made up of the original Eaving’s Sisters, but also including the reformed whores Elizabeth and Frances, as well as Long Tom and fifteen of his fellow Sidlesaghes and the two giants, Gog and Magog.
I can feel him running, said the Lord of the Faerie. Can you? Can you?
Noah stood within the sphere within the sphere, the dark heart of the labyrinth, and considered.
This is not as I will, she said.
It is what you have, said the dark heart.
No, said Noah, what I have is this!
She flung wide her arms, her head falling back, and both power and sound burst from her. Very gradually her body twisted to and fro in sinuous, liquid movements, and the black heart of the labyrinth bulged and creaked.
My name is Noah-Eaving, said the entity standing in the heart of the labyrinth, and I am both the goddess of the earth, the mother of life, and the mover of waters, and I am also your Mistress, the weaver and dancer of mysteries, and thus I command you: Do as I will, and not as you wish.
There came a great moan, and then, in a sudden, brilliant burst of light, the black sphere exploded, shooting bolts of light and incandescent globules into the larger structure of the Great Founding Labyrinth, exposing the goddess that stood in its centre, naked and throbbing with power, head back, arms outstretched, eyes as black as a witch-night, her hair snapping wildly in the powers that twisted and turned with the sphere.
She smiled, staring overhead, and said, Welcome. He leapt over the moon, vaulted the sun, twisted within the star dust of the heavens, and then looked down.
Below him lay a vast blue-green-grey lake, and deep in its waters he saw a great witch, naked, standing with her head thrown back and her arms outstretched.
Dance with me, she whispered.
Ariadne flinched, feeling more than seeing what had happened within the Great Founding Labyrinth.
She wondered that around her the life of the Tower continued so calm. Then a movement caught her eye, and she looked forward once more.
Noah walked towards her. Her eyes were black pools of mystery, and her body was clothed in a garment which appeared to be made of flowing green water with the stars twisting within its depths.
“Who are you?” whispered Ariadne, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it confirmed.
“I am Noah,” said the woman standing before her. “Goddess, Mistress of the Labyrinth, Darkwitch Risen. Entwined.”
The Lord of the Faerie gave a great, choking cry, his head snapping back on his shoulders.
An instant later everyone else within the Circle cried out also, their bodies twitching.
When another moment had passed, and the members of the Circle managed to draw breath and calm themselves, they saw that a naked man stood in the centre of the Circle. He looked like Louis, and yet not. He wore Louis’ face and body, and yet rising from his twisting dark hair were a set of blood-red antlers, and from his eyes shone a fierce wildness that made most of the onlookers drop their own gaze away from his.
“Who are you?” asked the Lord of the Faerie. “What have you become?”
The man that was once Louis, and who had once lived as Brutus and then William, turned slowly about to face the Lord of the Faerie.
“My name,” he said, his strong, low voice reverberating about the chamber and through the souls of everyone present, “is Ringwalker.”
Idol Lane, London
She walked through the door from parlour into kitchen and both Weyland and Jane, sitting at the table, the baby in Weyland’s arms, instantly recognised the difference in Noah.
There was something about her, such a dark knowingness that she could have done nothing but succeeded in her Great Ordeal.
Jane wondered why Weyland could not see Noah’s darkcraft screaming forth. She understood that until Noah actually used her darkcraft it would not be readily apparent, but still…
Perhaps there were none so blind as those who loved.
Noah halted at the head of the table. She looked at Jane, and then at Weyland.
“Let her go,” said the being that was Noah. “I am all you need.”
Jane tensed, terrified that although freedom was but a word away, Weyland would surely kill her. He wouldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t.
“Go,” said Weyland, staring at Noah.
Very slowly, hardly able to breathe, Jane rose to her feet. She inched around the table, her eyes never leaving Weyland, who just as unblinkingly regarded Noah.
As Jane reached the head of the table, Noah put a soft hand on her arm and drew her close for an almost inaudible whisper. “Tell the Lord of the Faerie that…tell him…ah, tell him that above all I am Noah and that I am for the land. Tell him that.”