Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

When he thought he was about to die, the water flow stopped. Coughing and spluttering, he sucked in a huge gulp of air. His vision cleared to reveal Cavillex an inch away from his face.

"This is just the beginning," he said.

Retreating, Cavillex filled the jug from another source out of Will's sight with a meticulous, slow pouring. Will tried to respond angrily, but his throat was raw from his rasping breath, and the residue of the water in his lungs and nasal passages made him choke once more.

Hanging over Will again, Cavillex said, "Once more, before I begin my questions. To soften you." He poured again.

This time the flow was faster, the water gushing down Will's nose and filling his airways in an instant. He choked, thrashed, could not draw a breath of air as the sensation of the water flooding his lungs magnified.

I'm dying, he thought. It was the only conscious notion before the involuntary responses to drowning took over: a wild panic rising from the heart of him, lashing everything from his head beyond the darkness of death rushing in from all sides. Frantically, he fought, but his captors maintained their grip with ease. A fire consumed his chest. His throat was a solid block through which no air could pass. His brain fizzed and winked out.

When he came round, the chair had been set vertically once more. Uncontrollable convulsions gripped him briefly as his mind fought with the belief that it had died, and the acute sensation of water filling his lungs to capacity. Every time Will recalled it, panic surged through him; the experience had embedded it deep in his mind, beyond his control.

His heart thundered so hard the blood in his ears muffled every sound, and it took him a second or two to realise Cavillex was speaking. "I am told that is what it feels like to drown. You should thank me. I have given you knowledge that few men have: of the dark landscape beyond the edge of death."

"Free me and I will give you an experience beyond that," Will rasped through his raw throat.

"Where is the Shield?" Cavillex asked.

Will didn't respond. Shuddering, he filled his lungs with air and clung on to the memory of breathing.

The chair was upended roughly, and this time his head did slam on the boards. The water gushed onto his face a moment later.

After his ordeal, his consciousness returned in a flood and his furious reaction threw the chair to one side so that he slammed hard onto the floor. His captors left him there.

"What do you know of Dartmoor?" Cavillex asked.

Wrong-footed by the question, Will fought through the sensations of drowning that still washed through him. "Dartmoor?"

"What happened there?"

"I have heard tell of that wild place in the west, but I have never been there."

"What happened there!" Cavillex's voice cracked with emotion. For someone who had maintained his equilibrium from their first meeting, his loss of control was shocking.

"Hunting?" Will ventured. His mind raced to draw connections. Why was Cavillex interested in Dartmoor? What had happened there?

Before he could conclude his thoughts, the chair was flipped over again and the water flooded into his breathing passages with a force he had not experienced before. This time he blacked out quickly.

Cavillex roughly shook him awake. Will could see in his captor's drawn features that he had expected success much quicker.

"How do we break the defences that keep us from exerting our will over your land?" he asked.

"You will have to ask Doctor Dee that."

Taking a step back, Cavillex looked into the street below as he steadied himself. "You know you will not survive this hour. For the remainder of your brief life, there will only be a cascade of pain and suffering, tearing your mind into ribbons. Save yourself. Seek salvation. Tell me what I need to know and you will be spared that misery. I will end your life in an instant. You have my word."

"God gave us memories for when the world gets too harsh. I have much to remember," Will replied.

"Very well."

Will waited for the chair to be upturned again, but instead Cavillex nodded to one of his associates who ventured to the back of the room and returned with another silver tray. Cavillex placed it on the floor in the moonlight where Will could see it. Lined up across it was a row of cruel instruments, so strange that their use was barely imaginable. Will saw gleaming blades, tongs, bands, screws, needles, and clamps.

"The question remains: what makes a man?" Cavillex reflected. "We shall find out. Blood and gristle and meat and bone. This part fits that part. But where in that jumble of raw, bloody mass is the glimmer that thinks and feels? Or is it all just an illusion? Are men mere puppets made of meat that imagine themselves something more? Have you told yourself a lie for so long in your stories and mythologies that you have come to believe it?"

Turning his back to Will, he studied the tray of instruments, waving his slim fingers in the air over them until he decided on his selection.

"We have existed on the edge of your world for a long, long time," he con tinued. "Over the ages, we have probed the mysteries of this existence, plumbed the depths of life, climbed the peaks of experience. We have come to understand the minds of mortals with the eye of an artist. Like wizards, we can conjure miracles from the base stuff of your being. We can distil the finest evocation of pain from the mist of your lives. We have learned to draw out suffering in minute increments, each one blossoming like flowers into something beautiful and delicate." He turned back to Will and revealed what he held in his hand. "Once you have gained our attention, your time here is over."

"Get on with it," Will said. He focused his mind on the information about jenny with which Cavillex had taunted him. In it, he found hope, and strength.

He woke to find his captors sluicing the blood from the floor with a bucket of water. His body was a symphony of pain, his thoughts floating in and out of the rhythm. He had lost track of how long Cavillex had been working on him, but he knew he had not answered a question, and he had not given up Nathaniel. He would stay true to his vow to the end. That could be a long time coming, he knew. True to his words, Cavillex was an expert in drawing out suffering, building then releasing the pressure only to build it again. Survival was no longer an option. It had come down to a battle of wills, as Will had always known it would.

"What makes a man?" he said to Cavillex. "Defiance in the face of brutality and oppression."

"The Spaniard was right, you know. You think you are the hero in this play? You are not."

Will spat a mouthful of blood. "There are no heroes."

"You will tell me what I need to know."

Will sighed. "Let us dispense with this chat. You already torture me with your words. Boredom is your greatest weapon."

Nonchalantly, Cavillex selected another tool from the tray. Gritting his teeth, Will steeled himself.

Through the window came the distant sound of voices. Briefly, Cavillex hesitated, then continued towards Will as he considered which new part of his body to assault. The noise continued to draw closer, a crowd, shouting angrily. Hazy from the pain, Will couldn't make out the words.

The crowd washed up against the building, their voices so loud Will couldn't hear Cavillex's quiet words. Somewhere below them a window shat tered. Objects clattered against the side of the house. Puzzlement briefly crossed Cavillex's face, and he turned back to the window. Will watched his body stiffen as he studied the scene in the street below.

"It appears you have gained the attention of the good people of Edinburgh," Will said wryly.

A rain of missiles rattled against the wall, and a steady boom echoed from the front door as the crowd attempted to break it down. When Cavillex turned to Will, his expression was cold and murderous.

"Does it serve your purpose to stand and fight?" Will asked. "Or will you melt into the mist as you always do?"

Thoughts crossed Cavillex's face, all of them unreadable. He looked to his assistants and nodded.

"So, your pleasure has been cut short," Will croaked brightly. "It appears my life is to end much sooner than anticipated."

"No," Cavillex said.

"No?"

"I told you, our skill at drawing out suffering is unmatched. Your kind has woken an angry beast. And you have gained our attention. Your activities in the past were an irritation, easily forgotten, like all your kind. But this night you killed one of our own-"

"Who caused the death of one of my own."

"No matter. When you kill a rabbit in the field, do you give it a second thought? But you have slain something unique and wild and astonishing."

Will was surprised to see tears sting Cavillex's eyes.

"You have stolen from this world something wonderful. Yes, we have noticed you. And your crime against all there is must be punished."

"This is never going to end," Will replied. "You prey upon us, we shut you out. You attack us, we attack you. You kill one of ours, we kill one back. What is there to gain?"

"It will end, and soon," Cavillex said. "And your corruption upon the face of this world will be wiped away, and you will be forgotten."

The window burst inwards, showering glass all around Cavillex, but he didn't flinch. His attention was fixed solely on Will as if there was nothing else in the world that mattered.

"You have gained our attention," he repeated in a quiet voice that was filled with such emotion it carried above the roar of the crowd. "You have someone you love?" He let the final word roll around his mouth with contempt. "Not the one we spoke of earlier. Someone close to you now. A friend, perhaps, someone you hold in affection." His gaze was heavy upon Will.

Grace.

Cavillex nodded. "I see now. A woman. When we leave this place we will find her."

"No," Will said.

"We will take her. We will show her the heights of our skills. We will make the fibre of her being ring out with unimagined agonies. But she will live. Until we bring you back to us, and then we will slowly slaughter you in front of her, so that everything in her heart that she felt for you is corrupted by her final memory of your suffering. And then we will set her free to live with her misery. A life lived in that manner is usually short."

"No!" Will raged.

Cavillex's cold smile was the cruellest tool he had used that night.

"No!" Will roared until his throat burned, and tore at his bonds until his already bloody wrists were numb, and he threw himself against the chair in a futile attempt to break free. He thought of Grace, and he thought of jenny, and his anger consumed him. If he could have freed himself, he would have torn Cavillex limb from limb. All the pain he had suffered in his life, and the agony that so many around him had suffered, was to be magnified.

It will never end.

When the fury finally cleared, Cavillex was gone.

Within minutes, the door to the street burst in and the mob raced through the building, smashing doors and windows, but they found no sign that the Unseelie Court had been there-just an old, deserted house left to its ghosts.

Calling for help above the tumult, Will was finally answered by Nathaniel and another man. When they paused briefly in front of him, concern lit their faces and he realised how he must look, covered in blood, with too many wounds to count.

"They are all small things," he croaked. "A physician will stitch them in no time. Help me." The biggest wound lay inside him.

The other man rejoined the mob, and as Nathaniel fumbled to untie Will's bonds, he said, "I returned to the carriage and when I did not find you there, I knew you must have been brought to this foul place."

"You disobeyed me, Nat. You put at risk everything for which we fight."

"You would never have left me behind, were I in need," Nathaniel responded defiantly. The bonds fell to the floor, and he helped Will to his feet. Though he struggled to stand unaided, he was too weak.

"Thank you," Will said. Though only two words, the depth of his gratitude was clear.

"I would be a poor assistant if I let my master die when it was in my power to prevent it."

"You have undreamed-of abilities, Nat. You raised a mob."

"Not an easy task. The people here lived in fear of ... your enemy."

Will winced when he heard the beginnings of understanding in Nathaniel's words.

"But I convinced them that together they had a power they did not have alone," Nathaniel continued, before adding quietly, "That, and a promise of some small reward if they saved your life."

"Small reward?"

"Quite a large one, truth be told."

"You are giving away the queen's money, Nat. Walsingham will not be pleased that you have bought such a poor thing with her fortune. Help me out of here, quickly. There is much to do-"

"Not for you. If you lose more blood you will die, Will."

"I cannot rest. Grace is in danger." Will swayed, close to fainting.

"You must see a physician first."

Resting against the doorjamb, Will said weakly, "Then I must ask more of you. Leave Edinburgh now. Take whatever money you can from Reidheid's house, and a horse, and ride for London. Find Walsingham and tell him Grace is in danger from the Enemy. She must be protected at all costs."

"And the amulet?"

Will hesitated. "I would not wish this upon you if it were not an emergency, Nat."

"And if you did not call upon me in a time of crisis, I would not forgive you, Will."

"The amulet must be delivered to Walsingham. It is not safe here. You will be safer once you cross the border into England, but you will still be a target. Your life will be at risk. Keep to the highways. Avoid the moors and the hills and the lakes. If you can, find someone to travel with you at all times. Do you understand me?" Will caught Nathaniel's arm with a desperation that troubled his friend.

"You can count on me, Will."

As Nathaniel helped Will slowly out of the house, Will dwelt on the cold passion in Cavillex's words and wondered if it was already too late.

CHAPTER 28

n the cold, stone reception room at his sombre palace of El Escorial, Philip of Spain sat in silent contemplation of the heat of passion waiting for him in his private quarters. Increasingly, his daily life felt like a troubling distraction from the only thing he truly valued, at times almost an unpleasant dream. Yet every wave of desire was accompanied by an equal pang of self-loathing. Now Malantha had started to infect his prayers, looking down at him in the depths of his head where before there had only been God. He had so much to concern him, not least the invasion of England, but he didn't have the strength or the urge to resist. Only Malantha mattered.

A knock at the door was followed by the arrival of the seventh duke of Medina Sidonia, Don Alonso Perez de Guzman el Bueno, a quiet, unassuming man with a greying beard, whose obsession with money had led to repeated claims of poverty despite his great wealth. It was his very retiring nature that had encouraged Philip to place him in charge of the Armada; among the many competing arrogant and cunning personalities in the Spanish nobility, Medina Sidonia had made the least enemies. His appointment-at Malantha's request, he had to admit-had offended no one and had cleared all obstacles among his own people to a successful invasion.