He lifted his left hand high. When he had been Brutus, Jack had carried a ball of pitch in that hand. Tonight he held a similar ball of darkness, except that it appeared to be comprised of writhing darkness rather than pitch. His right hand Jack held out before him, his arm slightly curved, as if he held a woman within its bounds.
His body moved slowly and sensuously, displaying its beauty as he danced deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, his feet making a tiny splash each time he set one down. With each dance step one of his legs lifted, its foot turned slightly outwards, held in place, then lowered, moving the dance forward with measured deliberation.
With each dance step, his left hand, high above his head, moved a little, twisting the ball of darkness this way and that, his head moving slowly, deliberately, counter wise below his hand.
As that ball of darkness twisted first this way and then that in Jack’s hand, so tendrils of darkness slithered out of the city, all from the northern bank, and vanished into the ball. The watchers on the bank (save for Grace, who kept her head down, concentrating) winced every time a new tendril of darkness slunk out of the night, seeping into the ball.
Everyone knew what they were.
For over an hour Jack danced his way deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. He was too far away now for any on the bank to see the expression on his face, or to witness the trembling of his muscles, but Grace, standing so close, was clearly struggling to maintain control, not merely of the Dance of the Torches, but also of the malevolent power she and Jack were twisting out of the destruction around London. At one point Noah made a small sound, and moved as if she wanted to go to her daughter, but Ariadne whipped out a hand, and held her back.
They must do this alone, Noah.
So Noah restrained herself—barely—but her eyes did not leave the form of her daughter.
Eventually, Jack reached the heart of the labyrinth.
He had danced his way through the entire labyrinth on top of the river, but as he reached its centre, Jack found himself once more standing within the crypt of St Thomas’.
For a long moment he stood, his left hand still held high, his right leg frozen in an arc.
Then he very slowly set himself in motion again, and danced the final few steps to the altar.
Here he stopped, standing upright, lowering his left hand until he held the ball of darkness in both hands, slightly extended out before him at waist level.
When he had been Brutus and dancing the opening of the Troy Game, a variety of evils and darknesses had followed him through the labyrinth into its dark heart. But the Shadow Game was constructed not to entrap evil in general, but only one evil; thus the darkness that had accumulated in the ball Jack carried represented only that evil which had created the Troy Game.
Jack stood before the altar of the crypt of St Thomas’, then, achingly slowly, his muscles trembling as if this cost him the greatest effort, Jack pulled out, one by one, objects from the ball.
The first object Jack pulled from the ball was an arrow, its tip stained with old, dark blood.
The arrow with which Brutus had murdered his father, Silvius.
Jack laid it on the altar.
The next object he pulled from the ball was a dark eye patch, encrusted with old blood like the arrow.
Silvius’ eye patch, which he had worn through all those centuries when he had hated his son.
Then Jack drew forth from the ball a stunningly beautiful ruby and gold bracelet.
Cornelia’s bracelet, representing everything she had once been.
One by one, Jack drew forth from the ball—and added to the altar—the sword with which he, as Brutus, had murdered Coel; Ariadne’s flounced red silk skirt; Asterion’s twisted-horn dagger, its haft cracked with age, and its blade nicked and dulled; the necklaces and rings that Genvissa had worn; and a cracked and terribly misshapen skull—what remained of Loth’s malformed head.
Only then, as he drew forth the final object, did the ball vanish.
The instant it did, Jack heard a wail coming from the back of the altar, and he whipped around.
Grace lay there, her beautiful skin bloodied and bruised, her white linen skirt torn and dirty, her hair awry, her face twisted in such desolation that Jack thought his heart would fail.
She extended one hand towards him. “Don’t leave me here, Jack! Please, Jack, don’t leave me here!”
Jack knew what he was seeing. As he had when he founded the Troy Game, he confronted his own fears and his own darknesses within the dark heart of the labyrinth.
And, as previously, Jack knew what he had to do in order to found the strongest Game possible.
He stared at Grace, hoping that she would read his love for her etched into his face.
Then he turned, and left her.
SIX
Epping Forest
Thursday, 17th April 1941
Just as Jack turned his back on Grace, a bomber flying high overhead disgorged its last stick of high explosive for the night.
One of the bombs fell erratically, wildly, on a far different track than its fellows.
It struck the roof of the north transept of St Paul’s, bursting through, then hit the floor of the cathedral where it exploded, the explosion creating a massive crater into the crypt.
The White Queen’s Game had taken its first bite.
Catling seethed into life. She had been unsettled the entire night…something was happening…but she couldn’t define what it was, and wondered if perhaps she was mistaken. Maybe it was just the massive air raid which made her shudder so, or maybe it was the nightmarish conflagrations within the eastern and southern parts of London that made her so edgy.
Maybe.
And maybe Jack and Noah were opening their move against her.
She crouched amid the dust and debris that filtered through the crypt, and snarled. None of the emergency workers or the members of the cathedral Watch could see her, but they could all feel the malevolence in the air.
They put it down to the bomb and the destruction it had wrought, not realising for a moment what else inhabited the crypt with them.
Jack…Catling whispered.
Jack emerged back into Epping Forest. It disorientated him, because he had expected to appear back on the Southwark bank where he had left Grace and the others.
Why here?
Grace.
Jack couldn’t forget the terrible image of her, despairing, in the crypt. He knew it was only a vision of what could be, he knew that Grace was either still at Southwark or on her way back to Copt Hall, but even so, he couldn’t repress the sickening sense of loss that flooded his being.
He looked about. It was near dawn, a faint light tinging the eastern sky.
He was close to Ambersbury Banks, and thus close to Copt Hall.
Maybe Grace was waiting for him there.
He turned to the west, but before he had taken two strides Catling appeared before him.
Jack stopped, his stomach feeling as though it was rising up into his mouth. He knew instantly it was Catling rather than the White Queen. He swallowed, fighting down fear. What did she want? Why was she here?
“Dressed as a Kingman, Jack?” Catling said, taking a single, terrible step closer to him. “And with six of the kingship bands now? I always knew you had them. But what is this? I smell residual power about you. What have you been doing tonight?”
She was very alert, very tightly strung, and Jack realised she’d felt something.
“Did you not feel the raid tonight?” Jack said, injecting anger into his voice. “Did you not feel the destruction and the terror? For all the gods’ sakes, Catling, you are the one reflecting that destruction into the Faerie! That’s where I have been, damn you, trying with every power I have to try to deflect your cursed malice!”
Jack’s voice broke a little on his last sentence: not through any skill of acting, but through sheer emotion and fear. All he wanted was to get away from Catling before she discovered the truth, get away from her before someone else (Grace!) happened upon them in the forest and unwittingly exposed his lie to Catling.
All he wanted was to get away from Catling and back to Grace and take her in his arms, and know that she was still safe.
Again Catling nodded, but Jack could see the mistrust in her eyes, and knew she didn’t believe him. She smiled, so coldly it risked delaying spring by a month.
“Finish me,” she said. “Delay as long as you will, Jack, for I cannot force you onto the dancing floor. But know that each day you delay I grow stronger.”