Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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       CHAPTER FOUR THE VANE

      There was no doubt where Chlu had gone. A chain dangled from a hole in the vaulting. It hung over the Bier, and was swinging. Chlu must have hauled himself up through the hole, and Will knew that he must follow.

      But as he pulled himself up on the chain he felt Chlu’s struggles cease and knew that his twin had found a ledge higher up. Once through the hole, Will saw that the space that formed the tip of the Spire was hollow. The sharp cone rose up a dozen times the height of a man, its interior lit by four great vents.

      The light was dim and diffuse – dust had been kicked into the air, but Will saw that six huge chains depended from a platform at the top. The structure was trussed internally with huge beams and straps of iron that held the stonework together. Chlu had swung up into these rafters and had begun to climb along them and up a series of ladders.

      ‘Come on, little brother!’ Chlu howled. ‘Catch me if you can!’

      Will heard the undertones of his own spirit in the challenge, and, undaunted, he climbed onward. But the way was treacherous. Always go first through a thicket, but second through a mire – that was something Wortmaster Gort used to say while out on his long walks. Going second here definitely put the follower at a disadvantage.

      The ladders were crumbling – many rungs were wormy. They cracked under Will’s feet. Even the lashings that held them to the beams were dry and brittle. No stonemason or carpenter had come into the summit in many a long year, so that nothing had been done by way of repair or renewal. Now that Chlu had climbed some distance ahead he began to unrope the ladder tops and kick them away. He laughed as he tore up whatever was at hand to throw down, but he could not halt Will’s progress up into what, for one of them, would be a dead end.

      Will fended off the missiles and pressed on doggedly, coming at last to a place about two ladder-lengths below the top platform. Here his daring faced a sterner test. The walkway had been almost wholly smashed by Chlu. In the middle all that remained was a single balk of timber. Will knew that one false step would mean falling to his death. He stopped and raised his arms to Chlu in a last appeal to see sense, but his twin’s reply was to fling at him the iron he had been using to tear up the planks.

      Will took a step forward, but was immediately thrown off balance, and when he put out a hand he found one of the giant chains. Each link was as long as a man was tall and all six chains came out of a line of holes pierced in the upper platform. They disappeared far below, somewhere near the Bier, but what their purpose was, Will could not see.

      He hugged the nearest link to save himself. It shivered as it came under tension and began to move downwards. Having grasped it, Will dared not let go, and so he was pulled to his knees then dragged down off the beam. For a moment he swung out wide over the drop, all his weight held on one twisted forearm. His legs dangled and his guts filled with a paralysing terror that snatched away all power over his body.

      Don’t look down, he told himself in a silent scream. Keep your head up and hang on!

      Distant grinding noises rose up from the space below when the chains jerked into motion. Will felt terror engulf him. His breath came in short gasps. The imperative to keep his grip consumed him as the pain in his wrist peaked. The struggle locked his muscles in a death-like cramp. He cried out, thrashed, managed to turn himself, then captured the link gratefully between his thighs. He squeezed his chest against the link and knew that he had bought enough time until the pain subsided and he could regain his courage. It had not been elegant, but he had avoided the fall.

      Of course! he thought as he clung on. It’s the vane! These chains are how they work the mechanism. They must be sending out a message.

      He forced himself to recall what was up above. On the very top of the Spire the great vane would be swinging and dancing this way and that, its various parts clacking and clanging as it sent the news of an unthinkable defilement to every chapter house in Trinovant.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Chlu shouted in delight. ‘Are you finding it hard to get close to me?’

      Will hung on, both in body and mind. He was shaking with shock, but the pain was ebbing and it was clear from the fingers he could still flex that his wrist had not been broken. Cramp complained in every muscle, sweat streamed down his back. It was hot up here, and he realized how much closer he must have come to the sun by now, way up in the middle airs of the sky, where Gwydion said the air lost its virtue and a man’s breathing came hard.

      He СКАЧАТЬ