Book Description
The third swashbuckling, supernatural adventure featuring Elizabethan England’s answer to James Bond, the dashing swordsman and spy, Will Swyfte.
1593: The dreaded alchemist, black magician and spy Dr John Dee is missing…
Terror sweeps through the court of Queen Elizabeth, for in Dee’s possession is an obsidian mirror, a mysterious object of great power which legend says could set the world afire.
And so the call goes out to celebrated swordsman, adventurer and rake Will Swyfte – find Dee and his feared looking-glass and return them to London before disaster strikes. But when Will discovers the mirror may help him solve the mystery that has haunted him for years – the fate of his lost love, Jenny – the stakes become acutely personal.
With a frozen London under siege by supernatural powers, the sands of time are running out. Will is left with no choice but to pursue the alchemist to the devil-haunted lands of the New World – in the very shadow of the terrifying fortress home of England’s hidden enemy, the Unseelie Court.
Surrounded by an army of these unearthly fiends, with only his sword and a few brave friends at his back, the realm’s greatest spy must be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice – or see all he loves destroyed.
Published by Transworld/Bantam (2012)
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Extract
The merciless sun boiled in a silver sky. Waves of heat shimmered across the seething main deck of the becalmed galleon where the seven sailors knelt, heads bowed. As blood dripped from their noses on to their sweat-sodden undershirts, they muttered prayers in Spanish, their strained voices struggling to rise above the creaking of the hull timbers flexing against the green swell. Harsh light glinted off the long, curved blades pressed against each of their necks.
At the sailors’ backs, the grey men waited in silence. Ghosts, they seemed at times, not there but there, their bone-white faces wreathed in shadow despite the unremitting glare. Oblivious to the sweltering heat, they wore grey leather bucklers, thick woollen breeches and boots, silver-mildewed and reeking of rot. As still as statues, they were, drawing out the agonies of the whimpering men before the swords would sweep down.
Captain Juan Martinez de Serrano knelt on the forecastle, watching the row of seamen from under heavy brows. Even now he could not bring himself to look into the terrible faces of the ones who had boarded his vessel. Aft, the grey sails of the other galleon billowed and the rigging cracked, although there was no wind and had not been for three days. Serrano lowered his head in desolation. How foolish they had been. Though they knew the devils of the Unseelie Court were like wolves, the lure of gold was too great. The captain cast his mind back to that night ten days gone when his men had staggered out of the forest with their stolen hoard. Barely could they believe they had escaped with their lives, and their laughter had rang out across the waves as they filled the hold and dreamed of the glory that would be lavished upon them by King Philip in Madrid. They had set sail with fair wind and all had seemed well, until the grey sails appeared on the horizon, drawing closer by the hour.
The steel bit into his neck and he winced. They should have known better. Now the remainder of his crew’s blood soaked into the boards of the quarter deck where they lay, each one of them slaughtered within moments though they were among the fiercest fighters upon the Spanish Main.
A rhythmic rattling stirred him. Raising his eyes once more, he watched a strange figure cross the main deck. The sound came from trinkets and the skulls of mice and birds braided into his long gold and silver-streaked hair. Hollow cheeks and dark rings under his eyes transformed his features into a death’s-head. He wore grey-green robes covered with unrecognisable symbols outlined in a tracing of gold that glistered in the midday sun, like one of the gypsy conjurers who performed at the fair in Seville. Sweeping out his right arm, he said in a voice like cracking ice, “You are honoured. Our King.”
Serrano swallowed. He sensed the new arrival before he saw him, in a weight building behind his eyes and a queasy churn in his stomach. He closed his eyes. How long would this torment continue? A steady tread crossed the main deck and came to a halt in front of him. Silence followed.
When he had mouthed a prayer, the captain squinted. A pair of grey boots fell into view, and the fur-lined edge of a shimmering white cloak. He heaved his shaking head up, following that pristine cloth until he reached the head of the one who looked down on him. But the brutal sun hung behind the figure and the features were lost. He felt relieved at that.
“I am Mandraxas, of the High Family, and until my sister is brought back to the land of peace, I hold the Golden Throne.” The voice sang like the wind in the high branches. Serrano could not believe it was the voice of a cruel man, until he remembered that this was not a man at all, with no understanding of compassion or gentleness or the kindnesses that tied mortals together. “Who are you?” the King demanded.
The captain muttered his response, his mouth so dry he could barely form words.
“Your name means nothing,” the monarch replied. “Who are you, who dares to trespass on our land and steal our gold? Who thinks you are our equal?” When Serrano failed to reply, Mandraxas continued, “You were damned the moment you insulted us with your arrogance. Let Deortha show you what you truly are to us.” The King waved a languid hand towards the main deck where the robed intruder waited. The one who appeared to be a conjurer nodded, the skulls clacking in his hair, and the nearest swordsman whipped his blade into the air and plunged it into the sailor who knelt in front of him.
Serrano cried out as the seaman pitched forward across the sandy boards. Deortha knelt beside the unmoving form, his lips and hands moving in harmony. Whatever he said and did, the captain could not comprehend, but a moment later the slain sailor twitched, jerked and with a long shudder clawed his way upright. He swayed as if the ship rolled in a stormy sea, his dead eyes staring.
“Por Dios,” Serrano exclaimed, sickened.
“Meat and bones,” Mandraxas said. “No wits remain, and so these juddering things are of little use to us apart from performing the most mundane tasks.” He waved a fluttering hand towards Deortha. “Over the side with it,” he called. “Let it spend eternity beneath the waves.”
The captain screwed up his eyes at the splash, silently cursing the terrible judgment that had doomed them all. “Let this be done,” he growled in his own language.
Mandraxas appeared to understand. “There will be no ending for any of you here,” he said in a voice laced with cold humour. “You, all of you, will join your companion with the fishes, never sleeping, never dreaming, seeing only endless blue but never understanding.” His words rang out so that all his fellows heard him. “But for the rest of your kind, that ending is almost upon them. Listen. Can you hear the beat of us marching to war? Listen.”
A sword plunged down; a body crashed upon the deck. And another, and another, the steady rhythm moving inexorably towards Serrano. He sobbed. Too late for him, too late for all mankind if the cold fury of these fiends was finally unleashed.
“In England now, the final act unfolds,” Mandraxas said above the beat of falling bodies. “And so your world winds down to dust.”
Serrano looked up as the shadow fell across him
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