Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"In the room upstairs?" Don Alanzo asked.

"The space has been prepared," al-Rahman replied.

Will quickly mounted the stairs and squeezed behind the mirror in the dark room with its unsettling atmosphere. It was too late to wonder if it was the wrong decision; there was no way out for him.

On the dusty floor, he made himself comfortable as he listened to the sound of al-Rahman and lion Alanzo beginning their preparations. The sound of scraping across the floor as objects were dragged into position. Flints being struck, and candles lit. The smell of tallow smoke and sickly-sweet incense. A brazier ignited, bitterly sulphurous, and the loud exhalation of bellows.

Don Alanzo and al-Rahman barely spoke, and when they did it was only to proffer or request instructions; it was clear no love was lost between them, their relationship based on need and gold.

Enclosed in his constricting hiding space, cut off from the world, the background noise became a hypnotic susurration, lulling him into a state where his thoughts roamed free. Time passed without him knowing it, interrupted only by the presence of new aromas, subtly different sounds, the murmur of voices rising and falling. From his restricted vantage point, he watched the shadows grow along the walls and the gloom fold around him.

From the open window, the sounds of the working city slowly died away, the shouts of workers, the dense conversations passing beneath, the bang and rattle from the shipyards, the back and forth prattle of merchant and buyer. For a brief while it grew still. Then came the music drifting from different windows, fiddles and voice and harpsichord, rhythmic songs from Africa and the Orient colliding with the passionate whirl of Spain, and the noise swelling from the inns, voices raised in celebration of another hard day passed, in song and in love. It was hot and muggy, the cooling breeze long gone. It felt like a storm was coming.

In the room, the mood had grown tense. Don Alanzo and al-Rahman's exchanges were clipped. Objects clattered on the floor with barely restrained vehemence.

Just as Will's thoughts once again turned to Grace, a low chant broke out from the centre of the room. Although he didn't recognise the language, there was something in the cadence or the rhythm of the words that made him uneasy.

In the distance, thunder rumbled.

Al-Rahman's voice grew louder. He held on to certain syllables in unnatural ways, punctuating each volley of noise with a click at the back of his throat. Will felt the pressure of ancient days begin to build in the room. He was sick of it all-the Unseelie Court, the dark arts al-Rahman practised, the world they represented. The comfort and stability of his childhood seemed like a light on the horizon.

What are they planning? he wondered. Thank God, there will finally be an end to it, lion Alanzo had said. An end to what?

The chant reached a crescendo. In its odd intonation, Will had the feeling it was a petition; or, perhaps, a summoning. Confident he would not be seen in the dark, he pushed his head close to the space between the mirror and the wall, but all he could see were the shadows of three people swaying in the candlelight.

One of the shadows ducked down to plunge a hand into an object on the floor, and emerged with a writhing object. The cries of a cat echoed around the room. A shadow-knife darted, and was greeted by a gush of liquid before the cries stopped abruptly. Once the cat had been drained, al-Rahman tossed it away. It hit the wall and came to rest on the floor, glassy eyes staring directly at Will.

"Can this work?" Don Alanzo whispered.

Al-Rahman did not reply at first, and then said, "You must be prepared for what is to come, both of you. These matters are not easy for the untutored."

"I am ready." Don Alanzo attempted to deliver the words forcefully, but a waver revealed his true feelings.

The shadow-al-Rahman picked up a small pot and balanced it on the palm of his hand.

"The red dust?" Don Alanzo asked.

"So rare," al-Rahman replied. "You have paid a great deal for it."

"It will be worth it."

"Again I stress, the ritual must be completed or there will not be another opportunity. The Silver Skull will remain fastened to his head for all time."

Will flinched with sudden awareness: Don Alanzo sought to remove the Skull from the man who wore it. What purpose would that serve?

The thunder rolled quickly towards Seville. The wind blew heavily now, rattling the window shutters where they lay opened on the wall. Lightning flashed. Will couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that the approaching storm was a by-product of a1-Rahman's ritual.

"The moment approaches," al-Rahman stated. "One more time: are you ready? Once this act is done, there is no going back."

Don Alanzo hesitated. "There is no other way?"

"This is the only way to break that which binds the mask."

Silence for a long moment, and then Will saw the shadow-Don Alanzo nod reluctantly.

The storm boomed overhead. Rain lashed against the building in gusts, and lightning crashed across the city.

Al-Rahman began his chanting again, his voice ringing off the walls as he attempted to be heard above the thunder. The tone of the words inexplicably set Will's teeth on edge and made the pit of his stomach roil. The mirror rattled in the blustering wind tearing through the window, so much that Will was afraid it would tip over.

"Now!" al-Rahman cried. "Raise him now!"

The candles began to extinguish one by one in a steady progression that did not appear natural. The shadows on the wall became more distorted, but Will made out a shape being lifted by lion Alanzo, larger than the cat but one he could easily hold in two hands.

Raise hint now

Will grew cold. His fears were confirmed when a faint, dreamy whimper rolled out in a lull between the thunderclaps and the gusting wind.

If Will intervened, he risked losing the Skull, the chance of finding the path to Grace and his own life. His wavering only lasted a fleeting moment, and as another whimper echoed, he pushed his way out from behind the mirror and drew his sword.

The final candle winked out.

A moment of darkness was blasted away by a flash of lightning. In its brief glare a horrific tableau was frozen: al-Rahman, hands raised high, holding a ritual knife with a curved blade, the cat's blood streaming down his face and bare chest; Don Alanzo, his face a rictus of self-loathing that revealed his despair, the bundle in his arms his passport to hell; the Silver Skull, cowl thrown back, head aglow, standing rigid behind them. Every eye was fixed on Will.

The dark swept into the room.

Al-Rahman barked an angry warning, and lion Alanzo shouted something behind it that Will couldn't translate. He moved quickly from his position before they could attack.

A flare of red light painted the room with a hellish glow. Al-Rahman had thrown his mysterious red dust onto the brazier; Will wrinkled his nose at the foul odour, like the burning flesh that permeated the torture room beneath the Tower.

"Stay back!" Don Alanzo raged, his sword drawn. The bundle was now held by al-Rahman. "Disrupt the ritual and I will kill you!"

"Harsh words for an old friend," Will replied.

The flare from the hissing brazier began to die down. As he circled, Will glimpsed something in the mirror in the dying light: the glass did not reflect the scene within the room, but appeared to show another place, and in it a woman, beautiful and terrible, looked out at him with a fierce expression. He dismissed it as a hallucination caused by a brief glance in the half-light, but once the gloom had descended he could still feel the weight of her chilling gaze upon him.

Al-Rahman continued to chant loudly. An odd pressure began to build in the room. One shutter tore free from its hook and crashed back and forth in the ferocious wind.

Another flash of lightning.

The white glare caught al-Rahman poised with his knife held high once more, the soft, small bundle crooked in his other arm. Sword raised to parry, lion Alanzo stood between the Moor and Will, tears streaming down his face, his eyes flickering towards the bundle. Will would not be able to prevent alRahman from bringing the knife down.

Another option reached him as the dark returned. Darting to the right of Don Alanzo, he was ready when the lightning flashed again. Before al-Rahman could complete his sacrifice, Will drove his sword towards the Silver Skull.

"No!" Don Alanzo cried.

Will thrust straight into the Silver Skull's heart. As the Skull crumpled to his knees, Will had the odd impression that he had moved his arms wider as if opening himself to the strike; as if he wanted to die. Blood ran from beneath the mask before Will withdrew his sword and the Skull pitched forwards, dead.

Shock fixed a terrible, broken expression on Don Alanzo's face. "Father!" His devastated cry tore his throat.

One word, and Will understood everything. Sister Adelita had told how their father had disappeared when they were young. Away in the New World, he had come across the Silver Skull and had chosen to wear it, or had it thrust upon him, and then he had been spirited away to England and locked in the Tower. Don Alanzo must have negotiated for one chance to free him from the mask before the Skull was used in the invasion, knowing it could just as easily be utilised by another victim.

Will knew how the mysterious disappearance of a loved one could turn a life on its axis and keep it locked in a frozen world of not-knowing and wishing. And then Don Alanzo had been given hope, as Will had too, in Edinburgh, only to see it snatched away; only to see everything he had hoped for since childhood destroyed. By Will.

In the sheer, bloody hatred in lion Alanzo's face, Will recognised he had made an enemy driven by a passion that went beyond the cold mistrust of national rivals. Don Alanzo would never stop until he had achieved his revenge.

His face contorted by an animalistic fury, the Spaniard threw himself at Will, slashing with his sword in such an uncontrolled manner it was easy to sidestep the attack. "I am sorry," Will said plainly, before bringing the hilt of his sword sharply against lion Alanzo's temple. The lion fell, unconscious.

Seeing there was no longer any need for him, al-Rahman threw his burden and darted from the room. Will dropped his sword and dived to catch the bundle. Peeling back the swaddling cloth, he found a boy of around two, hair black and eyes wide but drugged and dreamy, stolen, he guessed, from the ghetto that morning.

"You will be back with your mother and father soon, little one," he whispered. He laid the boy gently on the floor and turned to the body of the Silver Skull. The alarm would soon be raised, and he had little hope of making an escape with the corpse on his back.

After a futile attempt to prise the mask free, he accepted his only course of action. With al-Rahman's ritual knife, he took a moment to saw the head off the corpse. The knife was sharp and he met only brief resistance at the joint with the spine. Don Alanzo's father had given no sign of being a true enemy-indeed his final act had suggested he had been as much a victim of the war as anyone-and Will wished he could treat his remains with more respect, but he had no choice.

Once the head was free, he put it to one side and dragged lion Alanzo down to the front of the shop where he would be found. Once he'd reclaimed the swaddled child and head, he dropped a hot coal from the brazier onto a heap of drapes in the centre of the room. It would be easy to extinguish the fire before it spread. As the smoke rose, he tucked the head under one arm and the child under the other and slipped out into the raging storm.