Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
They emerged from the claustrophobic alley into a more open area that seemed residential, though the houses were squat and strange and looked uninhabited. The front doors were low – Ward would have had to duck to enter them. There were peculiar markings on them.
"To ward off evil," Slops whispered, when Ward stopped to examine one, but ostensibly to catch his breath.
"What evil?" Ward said, wondering why Slops was whispering.
Slops shrugged.
"Who lives here?"
Another shrug.
Ward peered into one of the queer, porthole-like windows, but could make out only a few bleary shapes in the room beyond.
A final precipitous flight of stairs, then they stood before the strange high house. It towered above them. The stone from which it had been constructed, or carved, was as black and dull as the space between stars. The spire far above cut like a ship's prow through the clouds that moved silently overhead. The front door stood open. So dark was this aperture that Ward didn't realise someone was standing in it until Slops spoke.
"Hello. We're here to see the Old One."
"She's expecting you," the person in the doorway croaked, seeming to materialise there as Ward looked on. The words whistled oddly through its small, puckered mouth. The face in which the mouth was set was wrinkled and pallid, the nose long and crooked and overhanging the mouth, the eyes keen gems that glinted out – they were the only thing about the creature that moved. They travelled now from Slops to Ward, then back again. "The rodents can't come in."
How it knew Ward was carrying Fidelma in his pocket, and Slops carrying Leif in his, Ward didn't know. Perhaps it smelled them with that long nose.
"Oh yeh," Slops said, and handed Leif over to the creature. The gillywig remained on the palm of the creature's hand, which Ward suddenly realised only had three fingers. Whether Leif was half asleep, or in shock, Ward couldn't tell, but he didn't try to get away.
"Go on Ward," Slops said. "She'll be safe."
Ward reluctantly took Fidelma from his pocket and handed her over. He watched Fidelma, crouched as sedately as Leif was, in that strange hand. The creature looked up at him (the top of its head was no higher than Ward's elbow) blandly. Nothing about its expression gave him any clue as to whether it meant him good or harm. Its clothing was entirely of a black, ragged make, and ill-fitting – but perhaps it was the body that didn't fit the clothes. It may have been that he (for the creature seemed of the male sex) suffered from some crippling disorder, or had been born deformed. Ward tried not to stare.
The creature stood aside. Ward followed Slops into the darkness.
The light rapidly faded. Soon there was only a dim phosphorescence hanging in the air before them. As Ward's eyes adjusted to the gloom he perceived a black stair that spiralled up through the core of the building, its outlines ghostly in the phosphorescence spilling down from somewhere above. The creature stopped at the bottom of the staircase and pointed upwards, but did not accompany them any further. The boys climbed the stairs.
The staircase grew tighter and tighter, and narrower and narrower. Dim lamps were set in the walls at intervals; it was these that emitted the ghostly light. What oil they burned Ward didn't know, for he had never smelled its like: something soporific and mildly unpleasant. The smoky air and the gloom gave him the feeling that he was only half awake. That he was dreaming.
The stairs became narrower still, and he was beginning to think he might become stuck in this weird chimney, when they came suddenly around a tight curve, and he found himself in a small, circular room.
What light there was shafted through slit-like windows set at intervals around the room; through these Ward could see the town dropping away far below. It seemed for a moment that the floor swayed beneath his feet. To break the vertigo he looked up at the crags of the mountains that pierced the mist here and there in the distance. Beyond them, through a gap in the clouds, he descried Bareheep shining like a mirage in the sun, and a far glimmer that might have been the sea.
So shadowy was the room that he didn't notice its occupant until she spoke.
"You just here for the view, or you akshully gonna arks me something?"
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Just here for the story, or you akshully gonna comment?
