The Absolute Book

by Elizabeth Knox

  Neve was down on all fours, her head hanging and hair sweeping the road. Aeng was still on his knees, but his arms were slack and his chin sagged to his breastbone. Both sidhe seem to be fighting to stay conscious.

  Taryn crawled over to Neve and helped her to sit up. She brushed Neve’s hair off her face.

  Jacob went to help Aeng. The guns had been disposed of. He didn’t need to stay down. Aeng straightened and thereafter leaned on Jacob. He was trembling with exhaustion—Jacob didn’t think it could be fear.

  The forcebeast had gone back to the building. The sounds of rummaging came from within, things smashed and, continually, the squeak of charcoal ground underfoot. It returned and disgorged dozens of metal bookends, a charred leather horse collar with smoke-stained brasses, a bronze bust of William Wordsworth, a lectern shaped like an eagle, and a long, rectangular, silky black box.

  Jacob heard Taryn make a noise of pain, of joy.

  Neve slumped again. Taryn had forgotten to hold her up.

  The forcebeast put everything down, gently, then it seemed to stand back and stretch up, until its clear turbulence was disturbing the stars above the roof of the antiquarian bookshop.

  Aeng got to his feet. He gripped Jacob’s hand, turned to him and whispered, his breath warm on Jacob’s ear, ‘I’ll need your help for the next little while. Your help, company, and love.’

  Jacob’s mouth sought and found Aeng’s—agreeing, promising, happy to be asked. For a long moment they were locked together and all Jacob could see was Aeng’s blue eyes, and all he could hear was the soft sizzling noise of his own blood in his ears. Then, since he habitually held onto his situational awareness, he checked on the police—because Aeng was vulnerable, and because these were a bunch of stubborn bastards.

  But it seemed the police had decided they were only witnesses. They, and the people who had come from the two pubs when the police car alarms went off then died. Some of the patrons had their phones out and were filming—that faithful new instinct—while others had pints in hand. The townspeople of Tintern were witnesses too, like the family of the terraced garden whose gate had lost its roses; and the woman belonging to the children’s bookshop, who was still wearing her work smock and a kooky Dr Seuss hat. And there were holidaymakers and day-trippers, tourists, all watching from a safe distance. All of them waiting for the next spectacle. Or, like the forcebeast, for the next instruction.

  Then the darkness shifted, and the available light shifted—one not ousting the other—and he lifted the box, and stood cradling it in his arms.

  Jacob could see that the box was heavy, and that there was maybe something slippery about it, more than everything about it, but that it knew it could lie still in those arms, the lithe arms in the lumpy, grubby, home-knit jersey. Shift. Suddenly apparent to everyone, not just to Jacob, who had all but forgotten him.

  The great spells of concealment, each with the same author, had come together and neutralised each other. The Firestarter lay quiet and was plainly there, and Shift was too, a dark-skinned, dark-haired young man with a sweet smile, and something disturbingly alien about his browbone, and with his human soul visible in his irresistibly lovely sidhe eyes.

  Jacob shuddered and, without looking at Aeng, let go and stepped away.

  Neve spoke up, her voice rasping. ‘Call your gate.’

  Shift looked up at her, and without touching the gold claws hanging at his throat, he summoned his gate. It came quickly, moving only a fraction of the diameter of its smallest possible circle. It picked them all up—all except the dozens of witnesses and poor Jason Battle—and carried them away.

  32

  The Folly

  Shift brought them to Neve’s house. The autumn sun was pouring, dazzling and syrupy, over the top of the building, none of it getting past the deep eaves of the great west-facing room.

  Aeng left them and climbed down to the pool to wash, though the sun wasn’t on the water. The forcebeast flowed after him, an anxious attendant.

  Taryn sat on the floor and let clamour drain from her body. She was exhausted.

  Shift took himself out onto the cantilevered balcony and put the Firestarter down. He sat beside it, his legs dangling over the drop.

  Jacob subsided onto the tile platform at the back of the room and covered his face with this hands. Taryn told herself she should join him and offer some comfort, but didn’t move.

  The house felt abandoned, the only sign of life the stream falling from level to level beside the building. The waterway was much smaller and quieter than Taryn remembered. But last time she was here it was early spring.

  Neve crouched beside her. ‘I broke up my household. The absences are too cruel. I sent my remaining people to the Human Colony for the time being. There’s no one to serve us. You and I should go gather mushrooms before the sun spoils them.’

  Neve led Taryn up to the forest of twisted pale trees. She went slowly, in deference to Taryn’s exhaustion. Between the goat-clipped turf and leaf litter under the trees at the edge of the forest, they found mushrooms of all kinds. Taryn recognised ceps, field mushrooms and wood ear, but Neve also instructed her to pick the firm puffballs.

  ‘It’s good that we’ve left the others back at the house,’ Taryn said. ‘They can sort themselves out.’

  Neve shook her skirt to settle its load of mushrooms and gazed at Taryn, curious. ‘Which of them? Jacob and Aeng? Jacob and Shift?’

  ‘I presume Aeng and Shift were once lovers?’ Taryn said. ‘And that’s what this is about.’

  ‘For a very long time. And their relationship was sustained through one Shiftback. But the last time, Shift returned not remembering he’d ever loved Aeng. I believe he feigned his regard in the last years of the relationship, to keep Aeng’s patronage through his forgetting. He woke to his renewed self, feeling nothing for Aeng. And the insult added to that injury was that when he encountered his wife—an earlier relationship—he remembered loving her. Not that she’ll have anything to do with him now.’

  ‘Why did you choose Aeng to help us?’

  ‘Aeng was Shift’s choice, not mine. Very few of us can make a forcebeast. I wanted to ask the Builders, but all of them are busy clearing a blocked mountain pass before winter sets in. Shift was impatient. Also, it was better to involve as few people as possible. The Firestarter is family business, no matter how altruistic Shift’s plans are for it. So—Aeng was Shift’s expedience. I agreed because I knew Aeng would bring Jacob with him, to taunt Shift. I hoped that, once Jacob was with Shift and you, he’d be able to break Aeng’s glamour.’

  ‘He nearly had before the police arrived with their dogs.’

  ‘Nearly isn’t enough,’ Neve said. ‘Not for me. But Shift will forgive Jacob anything—for your sake.’

  ‘He’s not an unforgiving person.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Neve said, then set off downhill.

  Taryn followed, going carefully, clutching her laden shirt, a soft morning breeze caressing her bared midriff.

  Shift was knee-deep in the tussock at the edge of the stream. He now had the forcebeast, and was picking up large lumps of shale and throwing them into it. It caught them and kept them. The shale clattered like rocks rolling in the rapids of a river. Once the beast was grey and loud with stones Shift took the Firestarter and, with several swinging heaves, tossed it in. The racket of grinding and crashing increased. The stones grew black with soot. The box kept disappearing and reappearing, knocking the stones this way and that like a big asteroid dropped into a field of smaller ones.

  Shift and the beast showed no sign of desisting, so Neve continued up to the house. Taryn trailed after her.

  Neve lit a fire in the tiled stove. She put a large pot on to heat, and sat down cross-legged to clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth. She sent Taryn out to the herb garden for parsley and thyme.

  The herbs were watered by a tiny diverted rill of the stream. Taryn imagine Neve—and several of those Builders—camping at the site of the house
many years ago, watching what the stream did and mathematically planning what it could be made to do. She thought of the wealth of time in everything around her, the architecture of the house, the relationships of seasons in two worlds—as if gates were gears of synchronised watches. She thought of revenges nursed for centuries.

  She used her fragrant bouquet to shade her eyes. Downhill, a figure was moving steadily away from the house—another in pursuit, leaping from step to step.

  Aeng walking away, with Jacob chasing him.

  Jacob had to call out several times before Aeng deigned to stop. Jacob was limping the last few steps. His back was jarred, and felt weakened. It seemed better to let Aeng’s beauty come on him by slow degrees. It intensified the closer he came; any possible flaws, lines, discolouration, roughness, dullness, all ruled out. Aeng’s face and form were faultless and unique—nothing ordinary, nothing out of place.

  ‘Take your time, Jacob. We are at seven thousand feet, and the air is thin.’

  ‘You can’t leave,’ Jacob said, breathless.

  ‘You’re the only one who has noticed my departure. The others are carelessly trying to break into that box. A ruinous plan. Scarcely even a plan.’

  ‘Why can’t you say his name?’

  ‘I never particularly cared for the name he’s now known by.’

  Jacob wouldn’t ask. Aliases were a problem for him. They always meant someone was dealing dishonestly with either their present or their past. Instead, he said, ‘I love you.’

  ‘You love me so you’ve pursued me seeking justice for your Taker?’

  ‘It was you who Took me, Aeng, not him.’

  ‘I believe he observed the correct formalities. He has your right of disposal. But that’s at least a hundred years away.’

  ‘He hasn’t disposed of anyone.’

  ‘He absented himself and let his aunt do it for him. Now he is smashing the thing he spent the last little while trying to find. He’s like a child who asks and asks for something and in the end is only interested in the triumph of attainment, not the thing itself. I suspect it was the same with you once he had you.’

  ‘He took me out of a sense of responsibility, because he wasn’t there when I was injured.’

  ‘He’s never there.’

  This was true except in one respect, but Jacob was sure that that was something only he could see. And he didn’t know how to begin explaining it. But he tried. ‘He’s listening to something else. There’s an appeal, a kind of prayer.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The green prayer,’ Jacob said. ‘The green pressure.’

  ‘All the changeable and loveless gods!’ Aeng cursed. ‘For seventeen hundred years we have tried to keep him sidhe. Now he means to embrace his godhood and betray us.’

  ‘That’s not my take-home from the evidence,’ Jacob said, sounding like himself.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ Aeng said. ‘You can find yourselves another bodyguard for your insincere parley with demons.’ He stepped close, and Jacob was immersed in his rainstorm scent. ‘If you have a change of heart, Jacob, or if you in any other way return to your senses—senses, which after all, are where we all live—you can find me at Quarry House.’ Aeng put his fingers on Jacob’s throat, and leaned into him chastely, only his face, not his body. ‘When trouble comes, please return to me.’

  Jacob couldn’t speak. His throat was tight with tears. His mouth would wear the ghost of that kiss for who knew how long. He stood and watched Aeng recede down the path.

  Five minutes later the thrashing rattle of stones and hollow timber ceased, the stones and box thumping into the rough tussock as the forcebeast disappeared.

  Jacob didn’t show any interest in Neve’s cooking. He went up through the house and found a higher balcony. When Taryn finished her own mushroom broth she took some to him. She put the bowl down beside him and told him she thought he was being hopelessly impractical. And how out-of-character that was. Then she spotted the diminishing figure moving along a ridge several miles away. Aeng was setting a pace that even the former Jacob would find hard to match. Taryn asked, ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘Not really,’ Jacob said. ‘The weeks without it did the trick. I managed to haul Battle over his counter without taking any harm.’ He picked up the bowl and tasted the broth. Taryn saw a tiny flicker of pleasure. He said, ‘If we really can’t do without protection I could rustle up at least one armed man. And he would bring others, without any persuasion necessary. He’s the kind of man who knows to bring a gun to a knife fight.’

  Jacob meant Raymond Price. ‘Would that be wise?’

  ‘He coped with the crocodile. He wouldn’t shoot you, or me, or Neve or Shift. Or a raven for that matter.’ Jacob tore his eyes away from the far-off figure before it passed completely out of sight. He looked at Taryn. ‘So what is the plan?’

  ‘We get some sleep. Neve takes the glove, finds the sisters and tells them to take a message to Hell. All the hells are adjacent to one another, including the Norse one. The message simply requests that any demon still near Hell’s Gate steps into the Sidhe to talk to the Queen who is waiting there. Neve thinks that, the Tithe being over, the only demons having any reason to hang around Hell’s Gate will be the Homeland faction. When a demon shows up, Neve will suggest a meeting, stating a place and time. And she’ll tell them we have the Firestarter.’ Taryn paused, then ventured on. ‘Jacob, I think before you sleep you should talk to Shift. You can find him grazing blackberries in the hollow over there.’ She pointed.

  Jacob said he didn’t want to talk to Shift. ‘I don’t want to seem to be asking for anything.’

  Taryn put her hand on his arm. ‘What would you be asking for?’

  ‘I’ve been existing in a vacuum. Proud of my strength without being alive in my own body. I can’t unlearn what Aeng taught me. All Shift will do is give me tasks—it’s the only kind of sharing he understands. But for my whole life the only gift I’ve been given is the gift of a place in other people’s plans. Aeng gave me the gift of belonging. With him, and with myself.’

  Taryn shook her head. ‘Remember how reluctant you were to leave me here the first time we came to the Sidh? You didn’t see gifts and kindnesses, you saw contracts and conditions. They’re a conditional people. Please don’t forget what you knew then.’

  Early the next day, at dawn, Jacob went down to the pool to swim. Aeng’s Hands had dissolved in the same moment the forcebeast collapsed. No one had offered to make more, and Jacob’s back felt both weak and in need of loosening.

  When he got close to the pool Jacob saw Shift was there already, standing thigh-deep in the water, washing blood from his arms and legs. His clothes lay on the flagstones in blood-tinged puddles.

  Shift noticed he was being watched. He stood dripping, and gazed at Jacob, whose face was indistinguishable in the twilight. A dark-eyed blur. Jacob didn’t approach him, or speak, and after a minute broke away and retreated back to the house.

  The house was quiet. Neve had gone about her business. The three who remained kept to separate rooms. Shift followed the sun around when he was awake. He carried the Firestarter wherever he went, a fact that added fuel to the suspicions Jacob was nursing, since the Firestarter had been nowhere in sight when Shift was at the pool, which must mean that Shift had been somewhere farther off in the form of some animal incapable of carrying the box.

  Jacob walked up to the Island of Apples to swim in the lake by Shift’s wattle and daub hut. Shift’s goats and chickens followed him about, complaining of their abandonment. While he was there, Jacob climbed the worn slot of track that led to the gate, and found a dented car door, the one from Stuart’s Land Rover, discarded by the dragon who had carried Taryn to safety before changing into a person. A person who wasn’t a person, or anything, really.

  Taryn altered for herself a dress and overdress of Neve’s, careful to choose nothing too grand or too worn—either might be a favourite. She foraged and cooked fo
r the others as a way of showing them she wasn’t shunning them. She was giving Jacob time to come back to himself and his self-interest. And helping Shift keep quiet and gather his strength. Also, she hoped if they didn’t have her ready ear they might get around to talking to each other. Even if they began with reproaches, it would be something.

  Her hope was futile. Jacob watched Shift whenever they were in the same room, but his expression was cold and sceptical.

  Taryn warned both of them, ‘If you go on like this, you’re going to lose him. If you want to keep someone, they have to believe you love them.’ She didn’t say, You have to love them, because she kept thinking of Alan, whom she hadn’t loved, and who had eventually understood that he wasn’t loved.

  Jacob told Taryn, ‘It turns out I need the people around me to be good.’

  Shift told her, ‘I only have four years, Taryn, and I’ve just had a reminder from Aeng of how badly it hurts those who love me that I forget them.’

  Taryn had spent some time reckoning the sentence she might expect to receive after a guilty plea at trial. Four years was her best guess. She had been telling herself that four years—Shift’s poor offer—was what she was willing to pay.

  Jacob finally told Taryn about the blood at the pool.

  ‘But Jacob,’ she reasoned, ‘if Shift had flown off to find Aeng and they had had an altercation, any injury he received would’ve vanished when he turned himself back into a bird to return. He’d come back clean. According to you, that’s how it works. So it can’t have been his blood, or Aeng’s.’

  Jacob told her she was being naive. And she told him he was being irrational, and then stopped speaking to him.

  It was a relief when Neve returned. She had secured an agreement on the appointed time and place. ‘There are usually plenty of people burning the midnight oil at Agile Media, but it’s five weeks after their last big game release, and many of the workers are off on holiday. That information is all courtesy of Hugin. She said Jacob would understand what it all meant.’