by Garth Nix
“Another time, perhaps,” said Merlin. He smiled, and exited.
Sometime later, there was another knock on the door. Susan woke with a start, the room dark, only partly lit from the spill of light from the square outside, creating numerous menacing shadows.
“Susan? It’s Vivien. Can I have a quick word?”
Fuddled with sleep, Susan sat up and wiped the corners of her eyes. Without even really thinking about it, her hand trailed across to the hilt of the saber by her bedside.
“Yes. Come in.”
The door swung open, and Vivien stood there, backlit by the hallway light. She had changed from her suit into dark blue jeans, a khaki shirt, and a dark brown vintage bomber jacket with a lambskin trim, and for a moment Susan thought she was actually Merlin pretending to be Vivien for some reason.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” said Vivien. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” said Susan, wiping her eyes again and waking up more completely. “What about you?”
Vivien didn’t answer that directly, nor move from the doorway.
“I’ve checked the wards around the house and they are all strong,” she said. “But . . .”
“What?” asked Susan. She was feeling rather irritable at being woken up.
“We . . . the right-handed . . . often have premonitions, some of us even visions,” she said. “Of the possible future and of the past. Like Cousin Norman, who I believe Merlin idiotically described to you as a reverse oracle.”
“And?”
“I’ve had one. Not exactly a premonition. A strong feeling that I should give you something, only I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.”
“What is it?”
Vivien frowned. Susan had never seen her so indecisive. Like Merlin, she always appeared omnicompetent. Now she was standing on one foot on the doorway, hovering and hesitating.
“Come on. You’ve woken me up now. What is it?”
Vivien grimaced, as if suffering a momentary pang of agony, then finally walked forward and held out three paper sachets of salt from Wimpy and an old bone-handled butter knife.
“Carry these with you,” she said. “The knife is good Sheffield steel and it’s been sharpened a bit, so you can draw blood.”
“Uh, why would I want to?” asked Susan. She didn’t take the offering. “Oh, what your grandmother said . . . salt and steel and blood . . . but what does that mean?”
“It’s one method by which Ancient Sovereigns and others bind people . . . things . . . to their service,” said Vivien. “One of the surest and easiest ways for you, if you come into that power. Mix a little of your blood and salt on the flat of the knife; ask them to ingest it, if they’re willing. Or smear it on an open wound, or stab them, if they’re not willing. Your blood and salt and steel will bind whoever or whatever you need to, with some exceptions. You’d need to give them a command at the same time. Something along the lines of ‘You will serve me’ or ‘I am your master,’ you know, that sort of thing.”
“‘I am your master’? I don’t want to bind anyone or anything to my service!” exclaimed Susan with revulsion. “I mean, what happens then? Do they follow me around forever, wanting to help and tugging their forelock . . . forelock equivalents?”
“No,” said Vivien. “You can release them again. That’s simple; lay your hand on their head—or whatever approximates a head—and say something like ‘By my blood and salt and steel, I release you.’ Or you can order them to go and live their lives until summoned, or sleep until you need them, or whatever you like, really. And the binding will weaken over time, if it is not renewed or some other method employed to strengthen it.”
“I could do this to anyone? That business about smearing on a wound, I could scratch someone in their sleep and dab on the mixture, for example?”
“Yes. If you do inherit the power of your sire,” said Vivien. “You might not.”
“That is awful!” burst out Susan. “I don’t want to be able to bind people, or entities, or anyone!”
“It might all be purely theoretical. And even if you do gain the power, you don’t have to use it,” said Vivien. “But I think you need to know about the possibility—”
“I don’t want it,” snapped Susan. She lay back and pulled the covers over her head. “I don’t want the knife, or the stupid salt! Go away and let me get back to sleep!”
“Okay,” said Vivien. “Sorry.”
She turned to go, and trod on the discarded boiler suit at the foot of the bed. She hesitated for a moment, then bent down and put the salt packets in a side pocket and slid the knife into the long, thin pocket made to hold a ruler. Vivien’s mouth quirked at that. A ruler . . . Susan might well become one, no matter how she felt about it.
Vivien left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
Merlin was in the hall. He’d changed into dark pants, black tennis shoes, and a black turtleneck sweater under a black ballistic vest with “Police” on the front and back. He had the old sword belted on his right side and the Smython in a holster on his left, butt forward like an old-style gunslinger. All of which added up to the fact that he clearly expected trouble, no matter what anyone else thought.
“How did she take it?”
“She didn’t,” said Vivien. “But I put the knife and salt in the ruler pocket of her boiler suit.”
“I still don’t know how she got a suit that fitted,” said Merlin.
“I hope I haven’t made a very bad mistake,” mused Vivien.
“Your premonition average is running about eighty percent,” said Merlin. “Remember when Dad almost caught us three years ago when he came back unexpectedly when we were stealing that special bottle of champagne from his cellar? If you hadn’t sensed he would, there’d have been no end of uproar.”
“The 1959 Dom Pérignon,” said Vivien, with a sigh. “We didn’t appreciate it.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Merlin. “But to the matter at hand. Do you have a specific feeling for why Susan will need salt and steel? Anything definitive?”
“No,” said Vivien. She shivered. “But I do have a presentiment of danger.”
“Yeah. But when, and where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should stay here, too,” said Vivien. “I was going to go back to the New Bookshop to check through the Harshton and Hoole records, see if we’ve got anything at all about that cigarette case. A mountain design, and a gift to seal a treaty or bargain, that can’t be very usual. There might be some correspondence on it. Which means the microfiche, since everything prior to 1979 has gone to the salt mine.”
“Sooner you than me,” said Merlin.
Vivien held up her right hand.
“Obviously. So should I stay or go?”
“Go. The wards are extant. Barlow is here, as well as Mrs. L, and we have the alarms. All three cabs are checking in through the night, and there’s an extra shift of D11—two cars—working out of Tolpuddle tonight, if it is gangsters we have to worry about, like that Superintendent Holly reckons.”
“Who?”
“Chief Superintendent Holly. Head of Organized Crime, but he had Greene’s job years ago. He was around earlier, asking questions.”
“That’s unusual,” said Vivien. “Unprecedented even.”
“Greene says he’s lazy and about to retire, only going through the motions. He’s upset because there’s a surge in gang violence and he thinks it’s related to Frank Thringley. And Susan. Because she was there, and those Brummy gangsters tried to lift her.”
“The gang connection again,” said Vivien. “I think I’ll look up Holly’s record while I’m at it.”
“Reg Holly,” said Merlin. “You’d better be careful; don’t ask for his file through the usual channels. Greene says he’s influential. And he seems to get on with Merrihew.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up, and I’ll duck in here early tomorrow morning, before I go to work in the shop. Are you planning to sleep at all?”
“Maybe not
,” said Merlin.
“Look after yourself, stupid brother,” said Vivien, heading down the hall. At the top of the stairs she stopped and looked back. “And take care of Susan. I like her.”
“Me too,” said Merlin. He frowned, wondering why this was so. Susan wasn’t at all like anyone else he’d been involved with before, in looks and background and behavior. She was certainly attractive, but there was more to it than that. He liked how she moved, and how she talked, and the way she’d taken everything that had happened in her stride, no matter how fantastical it had to be to someone who’d never encountered the Old World before.
Whatever he was beginning to feel for Susan, Merlin realized, it didn’t feel casual. But casual was his mode; he didn’t want anything else. Or at least he never had before. . . .
Chapter Thirteen
A shadow creeps along the wall
More shadows sweep across the hall
Many shadows leap and dance and fall
But shadows need both dark and light
No shadows crawl in blackest night
SUSAN WOKE AGAIN, DEEP IN THE NIGHT. FOR A MOMENT, SHE DIDN’T know what had woken her, before she became awake enough to recognize a ringing bell, a very loud bell like a fire alarm, though somewhat muffled. It came from somewhere lower in the house.
Two seconds after that realization, Merlin knocked on the door. Harsh and very loud.
“Susan! It’s me. Get up and get dressed!”
He came through the door a moment later and rushed to the rear window overlooking the garden, raising a hand to shield his eyes as the back was suddenly flooded with harsh white light. The clangoring bell was louder with the door open.
Susan leaped from the bed and into her underwear without bothering to take off her giant Wombles T-shirt, almost levitating into bra and underpants, and then she hauled the boiler suit up over everything, tucking the T-shirt in.
“What’s happening?”
“Perimeter alarms tripped in the rear, triggers the lights for the back, and a bell in Mrs. L’s room,” said Merlin, who was at the side of the window, tilting his head cautiously to look out. “Stay low, don’t come closer.”
Susan concentrated on lacing up her Docs.
“Shit!” cried Merlin. He ran from the window, back out through the door, to shout down the stairs.
“Greene! Don’t shoot until they’re well on the property! Don’t—”
The crack-crack-crack-crack of four rapid shots interrupted him. Merlin came back and looked through the window again.
“Damn! Clever. Susan, get your sword and lock the door.”
“What’s happening?”
“Stalking horse. Two gunmen, tricked out in vests holding quicksilver. Greene’s shed their blood on the boundary; blood and mercury will negate even those wards briefly and . . . I thought so . . . it is a Cauldron-Born. Lock your door!”
He exited, stripping off his glove, his left hand silver-bright.
Susan grabbed her saber, unsheathed it, and went over to lock the door, before returning to the window, her heart beating faster than it ever had before.
She copied Merlin and stayed to one side, leaning out cautiously to take a look. A man in a blue hospital gown flapping open at the back was walking slowly across the lawn, stark in the floodlights. He seemed like a lost drunk at first, someone concentrating too hard on walking steadily, till she noticed his head sat strangely on his neck, and then, with a terrible shock, that the shadow trailing behind was not human at all, instead a mass of smokelike, writhing tendrils that only connected to the man at his heels and did not mimic his upper body or movements at all.
Susan gasped as more shots rang out. Someone—Greene or Mrs. London—was shooting from the back door. She saw the rounds’ impact, fragments of flesh and bone spraying out where they hit in head and chest, but there was no blood and the Cauldron-Born barely staggered, as if he’d encountered a gust of wind, no more.
Then Merlin was there, with his old sword. He ran past, incredibly swiftly, striking at the Cauldron-Born’s knees. But it suddenly accelerated, leaping over the scything blade and twisting, almost managing to grab Merlin as he sped past and turned himself and then there was a sudden exchange of sword strokes and clawing hands, very fast. The sword hewed pieces from the Cauldron-Born but it was like striking chips from hard wood, and Susan gasped again as the Cauldron-Born almost managed to grab hold of Merlin’s arm. She knew instinctively that once it had him in its grip, it would never let go.
Merlin backed off towards the garden shed. He was trying to draw the Cauldron-Born away from the house, Susan realized. But it was fixated on its task. The creature took one step after the bookseller, then suddenly spun about and ran for the back door, only to be met by Mrs. L wielding a two-handed sword, a crude Glaswegian gangster’s copy of a claymore. She chopped diagonally at the Cauldron-Born’s shoulder, but she didn’t have a left-handed bookseller’s speed. The Cauldron-Born ducked under the blow and punched her aside, flinging the woman into the vegetable garden, where she hit hard and lay still.
But Mrs. London had slowed it down, perhaps at the cost of her own life. Merlin came up behind, and spinning on the spot, struck a titanic two-handed blow at the thing’s neck, where its head was already somewhat detached from whatever had killed the man originally. The blow decapitated the Cauldron-Born, the head flying off to strike the fence.
Even so, the headless body turned about and groped towards Merlin. Susan watched aghast as Merlin chopped and chopped and chopped at its legs and arms, switching sides and stepping back so it couldn’t grab him. Over by the fence, the dismembered head thrust out its tongue and worked its jaw back and forth, trying uselessly to pull itself around so it could see, its eyes half-buried in garden soil.
A noise in the room made Susan whip around. A soft tock, like a single muffled drumbeat. She couldn’t see anything in the dim light, but she heard another soft tock, quite close.
Something fell on her face. Her hand snapped to the place. She felt liquid, and looked up, her mind flashing through possibilities. It hadn’t rained that much, the roof had never leaked before—
A large circular section of plaster and lathe from the ceiling suddenly crashed down near the door, plaster dust blowing up in a cloud. Blood, as Susan now knew it must be, gushed down from where it had been splashed to break the protective wards on the roof. It was followed a moment later by the body of a dead or dying man. Even in the dim light Susan saw his throat had been slashed from ear to ear. Mercury slowly ebbed from a kind of life vest he wore, which had also been slashed. Bright silver trails flowed ponderously through the faster-spreading blood.
Susan lifted her sword and readied herself, shouting with all the breath in her lungs and every muscle in her throat, “Merliiiiin! Merliiiiiiin!”
Goblins dropped through the hole, lots and lots of them, two or even three at a time, a torrent of goblins who landed on top of each other, rolled and jumped and giggled—but it was weirdly soft and distant giggling, as if smothered under pillows. They were physically like the Mayfair urchins, twisted children with pinched faces and red cheeks, but these were dressed only in leather aprons that flapped up as they fell and tumbled on the floor, showing their sticklike legs, which joined straight to their torso, without a bum, and they had no genitals. Like foreshortened, wizened Barbies or Action Jacksons, made rude flesh.
Susan cut at the first one, steeling herself for the impact, the spray of blood, the horror. But the blade passed through the goblin, leather apron and all, as if parting smoke. Meeting so little resistance, Susan was swung off balance, almost turning around herself.
In an instant, the goblins were on her, and their grasping hands had no difficulty gripping her flesh. Susan dropped the sword, the metal not old enough to touch these faery invaders, and lashed out with fists and boots.
“Help! Help! Goblins!”
The goblins hung on Susan’s arms and legs, forcing her down. As soon as she was on the floor, they g
agged her with her own pillow slip and wrapped her ankles and wrists with leather cords, immobilizing her, and then immediately lifted her up over their heads, as if in a weird parody of crowd surfing. More goblins jumped down through the hole and formed a pyramid, many goblins deep. Susan was transferred to them and they lifted her up and up, through the hole in the roof space. It was open to the sky now, the tiles above removed, a section of rafters broken. There was another dead man nearby, a young skinhead, only a teenager, his throat slashed, blood used to break the wards. An empty bottle of mercury lay next to him, the skull and crossbones of the laboratory warning label uppermost.
The goblins lifted Susan up onto the roof. She tried to arch her back to break free, to force a fall down into the roof space, but at least a dozen goblins held her, six on each side. They walked easily despite the slant of the roof, taking her over to the next town house in the row. Coils of cut concertina wire that had previously barred the way had sprung to either side.
Susan kept struggling and managed to work her mouth out of the gag, which had been tied on in a great hurry. But her mouth was dry and she had no breath. The goblins rushed on, swift and sure-footed, over the neighboring roof and onto the next, and the next, all the way to the rooftop of the house at the end of the row. There was a rope ladder there and they swarmed down it to the garden, Susan shutting her eyes as they carried her with them, thinking they would drop her for sure. But the goblins were immensely strong for their size, and dexterous. They gripped the rungs with their four-toothed jaws and one hand, while keeping Susan tightly gripped in the other hand, four of them in a line.
They laid her down in the middle of the garden and stepped back, before suddenly running off in all directions, like cockroaches frightened by a light.
For a moment, Susan thought Merlin must have come to the rescue, before she managed to roll over and look up to see the dark outline of a truly massive wolf. It was the size of a minibus, taking up most of the rear half of the garden. Its eyes, larger than the square’s streetlights, were a dull red like the raked-down coals of a firepit. Its mouth was open and cavernous, its teeth forearm lengths of yellowed ivory, its tongue a writhing length of darkness.