The Fog of War

by A. L. Lester

  There was another pause. They seemed startled that she would have acted.

  “And what did he say?” It was Matty’s turn to prompt her.

  “He said he’d found a book of instructions about how to make things happen with an invisible power, it absolutely wasn’t magic, how dare I call it that, and that he was going to create a weapon to end the war and bring the boys home.”

  A heavy silence fell over all three of them.

  “That’s what he told me he was doing, too,” said Marchant, in an exhausted whisper, from the doorway.

  They all leapt out of their collective skins.

  He was leaning against the door jamb and the trip down the stairs had clearly been unwise. He was a pale greenish colour and looked done in.

  “Sit!” Sylvia barked. “Idiot!” She really needed to work on her bedside manner now she was no longer dealing with soldiers, she thought to herself.

  She jumped to her feet along with Webber and they guided him down into the carver chair with arms at the head of the table. He folded down bonelessly, breathing quick and shallow, and shut his eyes, resting his head on the tall ladder-back.

  “Pour him some tea, would you Rob?” Webber asked. “I expect he could do with a drink.”

  “He shouldn’t even be out of bed,” Sylvia said.

  “I could hear you talking,” Marchant rasped. “I wanted to tell my part of it.”

  “Drink your tea.” Curland’s voice was quiet as he put the mug down on the table in front of him.

  “Thank you.” He looked up at Curland. “I’m sorry, Curland. I shouldn’t have asked it of you.”

  Curland turned away and busied himself filling the kettle, stoking up the range, and finding more milk.

  “It’s all right,” he said finally. “I know what it’s like. That just wanting it all to be over. I was stuck under a collapsed building for hours once, waiting for it to fall. It would have almost been a relief if it had.” He ran a hand through his already-disordered hair as he turned back to them. “And what we did was enough, as it turns out. Unless you can still feel it?”

  Marchant’s eyes were shut again, and he took a little while to answer. “No,” he said. “I think it’s gone. Whatever we did, between us, it’s gone. Arthur began it years ago when he and I first met, and it looks like we’ve finished it today.”

  He sounded sick.

  “He tricked me. When we first met, I was happy to work a bit with him, to experiment. But he became more and more focused on power and weapons and eventually I left him to it. He’d made some sort of connection with me though, and he kept draining me. Until finally I pulled back. That’s what killed him, I think. I’m sorry, Webber. It was him or me, though. And then I ended up stuck in the Outlands…that’s what they call it, the people who live there, the magic users. They wouldn’t help me get free from you.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at Webber. “They said the line had transferred to you when Arthur died. They said you’d eventually die, and I’d be free, and they’d let me go.”

  He shot a look across at Sylvia. “That’s why I told Curland to finish it, you see. I don’t want someone else’s death on my conscience.”

  “Arthur really wasn’t well, toward the end, before Matthew came home,” Sylvia told him, aiming for diplomacy. “In his mind, I mean, as well as physically. He certainly thought he was going to make a weapon so terrible it would end all wars, forever.” She didn’t mention what he’d told her about people travelling through time. “Annie was truly worried about him the day she asked me to come out here.”

  “His letters to me got more and more rambling,” Marchant added. “I’m not sure they’d have made sense even before the censor got to them.” He drank some of his tea. “Is the war over?” he asked, cautiously. “I don’t even know what date it is.”

  “It’s three days before Christmas, 1919,” Webber told him. “And you should probably go back to bed. If you feel half as bad as you look, you’re dead on your feet.” He stood up. “Plus, none of us have had any lunch and it’s nearly tea-time. I am going to have some bread and cheese and fruit cake. You may all have some too if you would like some, but even if you don’t, I’m still going to.”

  He moved decisively toward the larder.

  Chapter 16

  Sylvia consumed a respectable amount of bread, cheese, and fruitcake and then left. She needed fresh clothes and some time to think.

  “I’m going to leave him to your tender mercies, Mr Curland,” she had said, rinsing out her blood transfusion equipment in the sink as she prepared to leave. Webber had gone to bring her car round to the front of the house from the yard. “You broke him. You can fix him.” She shot him a sidelong glance as he flinched. “Joking, Robert. I was joking.” She put the glass vessel on the wet draining board and turned toward him, reaching across him to get the tea-towel from where it hung on the rail in front of the range. There was a short silence as she dried off her paraphernalia and tucked it neatly in the wooden box next to him on the table.

  She shut the case, latched it shut, and then turned the chair next to him so it faced him and sat down on it. He was clearly still very distressed. “Robert,” she said, quietly. “Look at me.”

  He did as she asked.

  “Rob,” she said. “I think you need to let it go.”

  He swallowed. “Not sure I can,” he said. He didn’t bother to dissemble and ask what she meant. “I cut the man’s throat, Sylvia.”

  “And extremely cleanly, too,” she said. “If you’d made a messier job of it, he’d be dead. It was clinically neat.” She patted his hand. “A mercy blow, if you like.”

  “Sylvia…” He swallowed.

  “You were trying to save Matthew’s life. Marchant gave you permission to do it. Begged you, as I understand it.” She paused a moment to allow him to cast his mind back. “It wasn’t much of a choice now, was it?”

  He shook his head dumbly.

  “Kill the man asking you for a mercy blow in order to save the man you…” Her voice trailed off. “That’s not a choice, Robert. That’s no choice at all.”

  She left her hand where it was for a little while. He seemed to need the comfort.

  “I know,” he said, finally. And after a while, “I’d do anything for Matty.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s easy to see, if you know.” She patted his hand again. “Don’t worry, Rob. I would bet a considerable amount that Marchant is going to be fine, particularly if he can stay here for a bit and be looked after. And I think you’ve done him a favour by bringing him back from wherever he was. The Outlands, he called it?”

  Robert nodded. “Yes, that’s what they call it.”

  “He didn’t seem to like it much,” she said. “From the little he said before he needed to rest.”

  “He was a prisoner,” Robert said.

  “Well then,” she said, practically. “You helped him as well. I’ll try not to make jokes about it from now on, though.” She patted his hand and withdrew her own as she spoke.

  “I’d appreciate it,” he said. “I would really appreciate it.” He stood as she rose and hefted her case. “Let me take that,” he offered.

  She smiled and passed it to him. “I’ll be back tomorrow to check on him. You should get the telephone out here, you know. It would have saved you running all that way. Although why you didn’t take the car I don’t know.”

  “I forgot,” he said. “I plain forgot that we have it. I’m a fool in more ways than one.”

  She looked at him. “I don’t think so, Robert. I don’t think so at all.” She patted his arm again. “There’s Matthew with the car. Come on.”

  * * * *

  The thing was, though, when she got home, she couldn’t organise her thoughts enough to think about anything. She was exhausted…shock, she thought to herself remotely and was a little bit amused that she could still feel shocked, after so many of the things she’d seen. Out of practice, probably. She went back the n
ext day to check on Marchant and got herself an invitation to Christmas dinner the following day from Annie Beelock.

  She accepted. She didn’t want to be on her own with this. It was too big. And there was more to find out.

  Marchant was still worryingly weak on Christmas Day, not surprisingly. Despite that, he made it downstairs to join them for dinner although he didn’t eat much. Then he lay on the settee in the sitting room and dozed on and off whilst the three of them sat and chatted in front of the fire, nursing glasses of brandy. Naturally, the talk turned to Arthur and the books. It was hard to get away from them…they were stacked up in piles all around the room.

  “Are you going to keep doing it?” Sylvia asked Robert at one point. “Are you going to teach yourself more?”

  Robert hesitated. “Part of me wants to,” he answered. “I’d like to learn more about it. But it seems like it’s quite easy to get it wrong. Fatally.”

  Marchant stirred where he was lying under the rug and joined in the conversation. “It is singularly easy to get it wrong,” he said. He hadn’t spoken much during dinner. He’d eaten some of the goose and a few sprouts and then given his apologies, saying that was all he could manage. But he hadn’t wanted to go back to bed yet and Robert had handed him in here to rest.

  The three of them looked over at him. He didn’t sit up, but he turned on his side so he could see them. “Arthur got it really wrong,” he said. “And on the other side…they’re dangerous people. You met one, didn’t you?” He looked from Matthew to Robert.

  The two men blushed as Sylvia watched them. What was this?

  “Yes,” Robert admitted, finally. “Lin. Of the Frem. How did you know?”

  “He was…not a friend exactly. But friendly. As much as he could be.” He brushed a hand over his face, shutting his eyes briefly. “He said that he’d been here, that you’d helped him shut a gate someone had opened in the shimmer.”

  Sylvia could feel her eyes go wide. “A gate?”

  “Yes.” Matthew was matter of fact. “Behind the barn. It’s gone now. Whatever Lin did, it disappeared, and we’re damned sure it didn’t come back. We keep checking. There were…things. Creatures. Carnas, he called them. Screaming.”

  “Carnas,” Marchant confirmed. “They call them carnas. They use them to police the shimmer and make sure it stands between their world and ours. They’re…” He shuddered and looked a bit sick. “Absolutely vile-looking. And dangerous.” He pushed himself up to sitting and wrapped his arms around his drawn-up legs, leaning against the back of the wide settee and rearranging the blanket to his satisfaction, addressing his words to his knees.

  “If you pull too much energy from the shimmer as you’re working it thins, and they can get through. I don’t really understand it. They didn’t tell me much about the mechanics of it. But it’s definitely dangerous. Using kias…that’s what they call it…is dangerous.” Matthew nodded in silent agreement. “I can do a bit,” Marchant continued. “They had me shut in a room by myself a lot of the time. I didn’t have much else to do.” He pulled a face. “I’m not sure I’d like to do it here, though. Not without one of them around to back me up.” He looked at them. “They’re a lot more powerful than they look. They’re strong physically, but that’s not all there is to them—they’re supremely powerful workers. They have much more innate kias than most humans. Lin and I talked about it a bit.”

  He brushed his hands over his face again. “I’m getting tired. I need to go back to bed, I think.”

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Robert said. “Come on.” He rose to help him, and Sylvia rose too.

  “Let’s have a look at that dressing once you’re upstairs, Mr Marchant. It looked like it was healing up well yesterday, but it won’t hurt to check.”

  No need to lose all her professionalism in the face of whatever was happening here.

  Chapter 17

  Sylvia got home to a bleak house and a cold fire in the sitting room. The range in the kitchen was still alight, so she stoked up the coals and plonked herself in the carver chair at the foot of the table nearest its warmth. She was comfortably full of goose and roast potatoes and really didn’t need anything else to eat. Maybe a cup of tea a bit later, she thought to herself.

  She sighed.

  It had been a very peculiar few days.

  Everything seemed to be sorted out up at the farm now, though. The connection between the Webbers and Mr Marchant was broken. Marchant was home from wherever he’d been. And wasn’t that discomforting? What if Anna was stuck in this other world, rather than disappeared into the magical shimmering stuff?

  She rubbed her hands over her face. Maybe she wanted more brandy, not a cup of tea. It probably wouldn’t do the headache she could feel lurking behind her eyes much good; but she hadn’t had a proper migraine for ages and would take that risk.

  She took herself into the sitting room and laid and lit an untidy fire before she got the brandy bottle and a crystal glass from the polished walnut drinks cabinet. She poured herself a generous measure, set the bottle down on the low table in front of the settee, kicked off her shoes, and laid herself out in the firelight, balancing the glass on her bosom. She could just about drink from it if she were careful.

  She threw an arm over her eyes.

  Why was everything so complicated? Twelve months ago, she had just arrived home from France. The house was a mess, but that was her biggest problem. She hadn’t met Arthur Webber, she hadn’t met Robert, Matthew, or Marchant. She didn’t know about magic or magicians or time-travel or places outside the world populated by tall, sword-wielding magic users with pointy ears.

  All she had to worry about was making sense of the house and getting her neighbours to accept her as the new doctor.

  Now she had so much more to think about.

  What if…she took a slug of brandy, and grimaced. What if Anna was out there somewhere? She could about cope with the idea of Anna being dragged through time. Or killed by the shimmering energy somehow. There was nothing Sylvia could do about that. In that scenario Anna was either dead, or in a different time where Sylvia couldn’t reach her. It seemed improbable. It would have seemed impossible in her pre-Arthur Webber days.

  But now.

  If Marchant had truly been elsewhere…and Sylvia believed he had been…then Anna could be elsewhere, too. Trapped, like Marchant had been.

  It was a disconcerting thought.

  More disconcerting, she corrected herself.

  She swigged more brandy by tilting both the glass and her head and managed to spill some on her bosom. Damn. She’d have to clean that off before she went to bed, else it would stain. She rubbed at it futilely, considered trying to suck the brandy out of the material and decided against it for sanitary reasons.

  She was, perhaps, not entirely sober.

  She reached for the bottle and carefully filled the glass without rising from her position.

  What did being sober matter?

  It was Christmas Day. Robert Curland and Matthew Webber were clearly settled in a love nest together up at the farm. She hoped they’d stay out of the eye of the village, she thought absently. They’d managed to stop Matthew fading away after Arthur and rescued Marchant at the same time.

  Her eyes strayed to the Christmas cards lined up along the mantle over the fire. Elsie Wright had finally got her and her son out of the trap of her marriage. She was safe as well and had written to thank both Sylvia and Lucy. They all had people looking after them, looking out for them. They were all part of a family, one they’d made themselves or been born into.

  Sylvia sighed another big sigh. It made the brandy in the tumbler wobble dangerously close to the lip of the glass.

  She should talk to someone. Talk to Lucy. Talk to Walter.

  They’d both think she was mad. She’d been sitting on this for six months now—since Arthur Webber had first spoken to her and she’d begun to draw parallels with what she’d heard about Anna’s demise.

  But…if
Curland and Webber could find each other; and the Wrights could start a new life with a different family in a new place…then why shouldn’t Sylvia look for support from the people she was close to? They might not believe her to start with…but they would once she explained.

  She could tell Walter anything and she was fairly sure his only response would be to raise an eyebrow whilst he parsed the information and then to give her a reasoned, well thought out response.

  Lucy…Lucy was fiercely protective. Sylvia hadn’t realised quite how protective until the night Marcus Wright knocked on the door. It hadn’t been an easy evening. Lucy had been there in the background, quietly supportive whilst Sylvia and Walter had looked after Marcus. Then she’d just…been there for Sylvia. Unobtrusive. Arm around her shoulders, taking some of Sylvia’s weight.

  And the following morning, when Mrs Wright had appeared on the doorstep…for a moment, Sylvia had thought Lucy would physically get between the boy and his mother to prevent her from harming the child.

  Lucy would hear Sylvia out too. And then she’d turn her mind to how best she could help.

  But…did Sylvia want that? It didn’t seem like it was a particularly sensible thing to get involved with. Making pretty coloured lights appear and disappear in your hand seemed like a child’s game, but linking to someone and draining their life-force out of them until they died was most definitely not. As was the idea of another world behind a shimmering border of energy.

  If that was where Anna was, then Sylvia had an obligation to find her. She had thought she’d been done with the sharpest cuts of grief over the summer. She’d thought about the elder Webber’s tales and stories. She’d come to terms with the fact that her friend might not have died but been transported to another time or place and she’d done some more grieving about not being able to find out for sure as well as grieving for her possible death. It had all rolled up into a big ball of Anna being gone.

  The grief was for Sylvia herself and the way she missed Anna; she’d realised. Self-indulgent rubbish. She’d put it to one side a little after that and begun to move on…especially once Lucy and her bright smile had arrived at Courtfield.