Page 66 of The Salt King

“Tua-Brocken,” Lord Harkta said to Avelyn, quite gently. “Tell us: what do you believe the Salt King is? Don’t say what you think we want to hear. Say what you know. You will not be punished. You are a witch: you are free to speak.”

Avelyn didn’t know what to do. He had spent his adult life being told to speak freely, to say what he really thought, but if he had done that, he would never have been allowed into holy orders; he would have died on a street somewhere in Italy years ago. Yes, of course I accept that God’s hand guides us. No, I believe in no other god. And . . . to say what he thought the Salt King was, in front of the Witan: even a witch could be flogged for that.

But something was going on here he didn’t understand. What had Lady Wolkvos meant, that seeing what was in the mine would kill his faith, and that a witch had said he was dangerous? What did Lord Harkta mean, that Rome needed to see what was there, to send more clergy?

There was no help from Ras, who was as unreadable as halite.

Then . . . it was as though someone behind him held both his elbows. His ruined tattoos sang. He knew no one was there—it wasn’t the same as real pressure on his skin—but the feeling was so distinct, the certainty that something outside him had brushed by was so absolute that he wanted to look around anyway. It was warm, and careful, something unsayably mighty touching something unsayably fragile. It was how he imagined it felt to be struggling against the tide at sea, only for a whale to swim under you and brush you with one curious fin, easing you into a kinder current.

That, Father Li would have said, was God.

It wasn’t.

“I know this is a terrible thing for me to say in this place of all places,” he said at last. “I know . . . your love for the King, of course I know it. I can feel the ras right now.”

Even Lady Hringen was listening. Listening, not just facing him.

“But the Salt King is no god, and An El is a woeful mistake of a name. There are no angels in Hreodwater. Angels do not fall from Heaven and then hide underground, murdering priests and setting up cults for their own worship. The Salt King is a demon, and what you need is not more witches generally. You need exorcists, the strongest witches there are. If I can prove that they are required, my Witan will send them. Whatever is happening, they will contain it.”

“How do they do that?” Lady Wolkvos asked, serious and intense.

“The god of Rome and his family are much stronger than anything down a mine in the fen. Exorcists invoke the Holy Mother, who is . . .” Christ, how did you explain what Mary was. “A great spirit who can defeat such things as this. To her the Salt King is nothing. She has sent princes of Hell back to the inferno.”22

There, he thought numbly. If they don’t attach me to four horses and make them run in four different directions, then today is a good day.

He would have sworn Lord Harkta winked at him.

“Now there is faith,” Lady Teksa murmured. She shot an admiring look over at Ras, as if he had done something fiendishly clever bringing Avelyn here. Ras, of course, had his eyes down, motionless.

Everyone was looking at Lady Hringen.

There was a long pause in which she stared at some point beyond the floor.

“I’ll take you down,” she said abruptly, “and you can bring your light painting machine. Meet me in an hour. Wear something more sensible than that. Don’t be late.”

21 The legal title of the King of England was something along the lines of King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Commonwealth, Except Hreodwater, Where He Is Very Welcome If He Is Not a Nuisance.

22 Father Gabriele Amorth, founder of the International Association of Exorcists, died just before Avelyn came to Rome, but Avelyn had read all his books, and unlike showmen like Reyes, he was sincere and funny, and maintained that it was no good invoking Christ against anything demonic. Only the Holy Mother seemed to have much effect. He did also think that you could be cursed by safari souvenirs and that rock music let the Devil in, but Avelyn’s approach towards the wackier ends of the Church was that he would believe claims that didn’t arise naturally from being an elderly man worried by foreign travel and Today’s Youth. That detail about Mary wasn’t one you’d come up with—or he didn’t think so—if with typical Vatican machismo, you thought the solution to spiritual problems was to shout at them until they went away to bother someone else.

25

The mine was much bigger than Hreodwater. Some of the passages were tiny shafts, only just big enough for a person to climb down. Some were vast, ancient ways, a hundred feet high, with great bridges across underground rivers and eel-haunted lakes. Avelyn had known some of the King’s Way, the section of the mine owned by the Brocken; he had never even seen the Saint’s Way, the sole kingdom of the Hringen.

Avelyn plunged back down to An El to change into a top with long sleeves that wouldn’t show up too much dirt. It would be hot down there: no need for a jumper. With the camera on his hip, a spare packet of film in his pocket, and his rosary wound around his wrist, he went to the gate early to wait, determined for nobody to complain he wasn’t ready on time.

If he could just say to the Vatican: Look. This is the salt light at An El. Twilight, dim. Now this is the light in the deep: bright. And everyone says it’s brighter than it should be, and the people who are being cured have a salt light halo . . . That was something. Whether or not he could make Father Li or anyone believe that what was down here was something so ancient and terrible that hardly anyone at the Vatican truly believed in it anymore, at least he would have tried. At least there was a chance of making enough noise to bring a real exorcist, officially or not.

“I did say to wear something more sensible,” Lady Hringen said when she arrived. To his surprise, Ras was with her. Uncomfortably, it occurred to him that maybe Ras didn’t want her wandering around the mine with The Path Not Travelled.

“What’s wrong with this?” Avelyn asked.

Both of them were wearing real mining gear: Hreod leather, heavy boots. He had seen that plenty, but what he hadn’t seen was mining gear with silver plating. It was like armour, worked with the Hringen sigils. They looked more like knights than miners.

They glanced at each other, and there was one of those moments where a great deal of talking was being done without any speaking. Lady Hringen looked awkward. Ras looked . . . somewhere between patient and tired.

“I brought some things for you,” Ras said, lifting his satchel a little. “There’s a locker room off to the side there. You can get changed there.”

“But—why?” said Avelyn, as Lady Hringen unlocked the silver gate. It was so high and heavy she had to put her whole weight to it. Beyond it, the salt light was an aurora again, dancing above the sloping road down into the deep.