The Black Chalice

Forty-Three

Alymere regained consciousness some time before dawn. He came to slowly, still groggy and, while not feverish, sheened with sweat. He pushed back the blanket. The first thing he did was reach for the book, but it wasn't where he had left it and wasn't in its hiding place beneath his bed. A surge of panic rose within him, and he threw himself out of the low cot and scrabbled about on the floor, looking around frantically for the Devil's book. He clawed up the rug and tugged at the corners of several floorboards to pry them free, but while they creaked and groaned beneath his weight none of them were loose enough to lift. He turned, still on his hands and knees, and saw the ash in the hearth, all that remained of the fire that had burned out during the night. He crawled across to it, a low, feral moan escaping his throat as he sifted through the ashes. There was no sign that the book had been burned. But where was it? He felt as though half of his soul had been stolen from him. He didn't need the book. The words were alive inside him. But be that as it may, he wanted the book. It was near, somewhere — he could feel it — just not in this room.

Who had taken it?

And then, some thing, some trace of his nightmare, crossed his mind and he saw Bors looming over him in the open doorway. Bors had taken the book. He must have. He had put Alymere to bed after he collapsed, and had found the book lying open on the floor. Had he tried to read it? Had he tried to steal it from him? Had he found it, started to read, and then the book offered up its secrets? No. No. That couldn't have happened. Bors couldn't have read a single word of it, so pure was the knight. The thoughts raced crazily through Alymere's mind, each coming before the previous one had time to fully form. He tried to think, to reason, as his uncle had taught him to; to think through the problem using only the evidence at hand, not chasing flights of fancy. Bors had taken the book. No other explanation made sense. And for his reasoning to work, that meant, surely that the big man had taken it simply to destroy it? But why would he do such a thing? Why would he take the one thing left to Alymere, the last good thing in his life, and crush it?

Because, the voice crooned at the back of his mind, like everyone else, the knight only cares for himself. That is the extent of his virtue. You are nothing to him. Why should it matter to him if you are whole? Why should he care if you are fulfilled? He treats you like a child. A joke. You are neither. We are neither. Go, find him, take the book from him, and if he tries to stop you, cut him down.

Alymere stood slowly, looking around the room. 'Yes,' he said. 'It is mine.'

The sky outside was bruise-purple and moonless. He padded over to the window, which he saw was broken. He touched the crack in the glass, unable to remember how it had happened. The world beyond it was still deep in sleep.

And as he cut the pad of his index finger on the broken glass, he remembered what the Devil had asked of him:

Bring it to me. Bring me the Chalice. Go first to the great Laird's cairn; you will know your way from there. The words came to him like ghosts. He knew who the great Laird had been; his father had told him stories of Nectan, clan-lord of Tay, and the constant thorn he had been in Alymere's grandfather's side, leading his raiders deep into his protectorate, pillaging, raping and burning. And Alymere knew where the stones had been laid to mark his burial place. North of Dun Chailleann, high in the mountain ranges of Sidh Chailleann.⁹ His father had called it the Constant Storm, and told stories about how it never stopped raining there, but said that others, more superstitious, called it the Fairy Hill¹⁰ for the uncanny air that clung to it. But it didn't matter what they called it, really. The Caledonian mountain was far over the border, beyond both Rannoch and Tay lochs, and through the deep woods of Coit Celidon into the heart of reiver country, and for Alymere that made the journey suicidal.

But he could no more refuse the Devil than he could save his own soul, book or no book.

His travelling cloak was draped over the back of the room's one chair, his pack bundled into the corner of the room. He fastened his cloak around his neck, ignoring the reek from his clothes. The pack was empty, but he shouldered it anyway. He would need something to carry the Chalice when he found it. And he had no doubt that he would recover it, with the Devil at his back.

And then he saw something he had thought lost: the strip the Crow Maiden had torn from her dress and given to him as a favour. He had not worn it since the fire. She had set him on this course. He remembered his promise to her, how naive he had been to think love would conquer all. Still, he took the linen and tied it tightly around his forearm. He couldn't have explained why he did it, nor accounted for how important such a little thing would prove to be. It just felt like the right thing to do. He was a grail knight now, albeit a dark one, riding off into peril. It was only right he wear his lady's favour; after all, she was the only one who had never lied to him, he realised bleakly.

He took one last look around the room he had grown up in, feeling that he would never return, and closed the door behind him. It settled in the frame with an air of finality.

He did not look back.

Forty-Four

He found Sir Bors de Ganis in the Great Hall, the book open in his lap. He looked up as Alymere walked toward him. He hadn't slept all night; that much was painfully obvious. His usual jovial demeanour had deserted him. His face was grave, his eyes dark hollows. His skin had a sickly waxen cast to it and his beard, where usually it was well groomed, was unruly and wild. Had he been pressed, Alymere would have said it looked as though the big man had been fighting for his life all night, and fighting hard, but there wasn't a mark on him, and nothing to suggest he had left his seat in hours.

'What is this terrible thing, lad?' Bors asked.

Alymere stopped, still five paces short of Bors' seat.

'It is a book,' Alymere said, aware that his words were laced with sarcasm. He did not smile. The old Alymere would have, trying to be affable, looking to please the big man, but no more. He wanted the book back.

'I can see that, but that is not what I mean, and well you know it.'

'Then perhaps you should be more precise in your questions, no?'

'I'll let you have that one, but talk to me like that again and — '

'And what? You'll strike me down? I don't think so. You don't have it in you. So, give me the book. It is mine.'

'I don't think so, lad. I might be many things, but I am not a fool. Listen to yourself. You're changing. I don't think I should let you anywhere near it. There's something not right about this thing, I can feel it. And I can feel what it is doing to you. No good can come of it, you mark my words.'

'You are so sure you know what's best for me, aren't you? So sure that you lied about who my father was, to my face, and now you expect me to honour you? Go to Hell,' as Alymere spat the last words out, his face twisted into a sneer.

His words hit their mark. Bors closed the Devil's Bible, dust wafting up from the pages to dance and drift in the first rays of dawn that crept in through the high windows. For a moment, a single heartbeat frozen in time, the knight's face betrayed his true revulsion of the man before him, before he mastered it. 'You want it? Take it.' He said, without offering it. He didn't move.

Alymere took a single step forward, closing the gap between them to just a few feet. He was still a few steps shy of being able to snatch the book out of the big man's grasp. His eyes flicked from Bors' face to the book in his lap and back again.

'Take it, lad, if it is so damned important to you,' Bors repeated. There was no kindness in his voice. 'I will not stop you. Take it and be damned right along with it. Who am I to prevent you destroying your life?'

'No-one,' Alymere said, taking a second step. 'And I owe you nothing. Not anymore. Whatever bond I thought we might have shared, you severed with your secrets and lies. So whatever game you are playing won't work on me. Now, give me the book.'

The big man shook his head. 'No. Take it. I'll not be party to ruining a good man. I owe your father more than