by Garth Nix
Susan also saw something else, and with it came the realization that a part of what Southaw had said about her father was untrue. It was not all over for him.
She lunged for the fallen butter knife with its one sharpened edge and scuttled to the grave, almost falling in headfirst. She sawed at the rope on her father’s right wrist, and it gave way as if the knife did slice butter. His eyelids quivered. She cut away the second rope and his mouth opened to draw in a rasping breath.
There was a terrible scream overhead and the head began its downward plunge.
“Guard me!” shrieked Susan to Merlin, as she swung about to cut the rope on her father’s ankle. As the hair strands there parted, he sat up. Susan lurched across him, bringing the knife down on the last binding—
Merlin’s sword flashed overhead; there was a flare of brilliant light and a deafening boom. Susan felt something hit her back, smashing her down. She rolled onto her side to look up, and there was Holly’s head only a few inches from her face, teeth bared in hatred.
It was pierced through jaw and temple by the ancient sword. Both Merlin and Vivien strained to hold it up and away from Susan as it bit at the air, their silver hands bright as sunshine.
Gray, greasy smoke billowed from nostrils and empty eye sockets, tendrils questing towards Susan. This was the essence of Southaw, leaving the last remnant of its temporary mortal convenience, the raw mythic entity still far greater than anything Susan had become. She still lacked the power to fight it, and the smoke reached out towards her eyes, looking for a way in—
A hand gripped Susan’s and she screamed in total panic, but she knew it in that same instant.
Her father’s hand, which she had never felt before.
The scream became a sigh as Susan let all the power she had gathered go, opening the floodgates of her inner self, releasing the magic she had gathered, the magic stolen by Southaw, the magic still within the mountain, all rushing into one, as a long-dammed mighty river rediscovers its proper bed.
Coniston Rex took it all in, and used it.
“Go, Southaw,” said a voice, hoarse from long disuse. “Get thee gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The day withdraws at fall of night
The night presses on, seeks a kiss of light
The two can never meet but fleetingly
At dusk and dawn, so prettily
THE INTENSELY THICK GRAY SMOKE, SO CLOSE TO SUSAN’S EYES, recoiled from Coniston’s words. It coalesced into a massive, fuzzy-edged, pale raven that loomed above Merlin and Vivien, where they stood on the edge of the grave. It opened its beak to caw once in brief defiance, before rising up and winging south.
Susan looked at her father, close to her in the stony grave. He returned her gaze, before looking down at himself and his hands. He gestured. His nails fell away, and the beard and hair receded to medium sixties hippie rather than feral ancient, and his Nehru jacket, purple flares, and boots were mended.
“Thank you, daughter,” he croaked. But he made no movement to hug her, or show affection, and Susan felt no inclination to do so herself. She could see some of him in how she looked herself, physically, but it was an academic observation. He might be her father, but he was still a stranger. Something about the way he looked at her suggested he felt much the same. Finding a father was one thing. Establishing any kind of relationship with him would clearly be more difficult. Made even more so by the nature of what he was.
Coniston looked up at Merlin and Vivien.
“Young St. Jacques,” he said, in a not-too-friendly tone. “I trust you are not with that Merrihew who lured me to Southaw’s trap. Who now lies dead upon my upper slope. What is your business here?”
“Helping Susan,” said Merlin. “And you, sir.”
Coniston nodded slowly, accepting that. He climbed out of the grave, paused, and held his hand out to Susan. She took it, moving stiffly and wincing as she stepped up. She’d momentarily forgotten about the glancing wound to her leg, but now the pain was coming back with a vengeance, and the cuts on her hands stung.
Coniston frowned and she suddenly felt pins and needles in her hand, and the familiar magic came back, flowing from mountain to man to her. It was like being given pethidine the time she’d broken her wrist falling off Christie, her neighbor’s usually placid mare. She felt relief flowing through her veins, and the pain went away from bullet wound and cuts. But it was not only that. Her father was giving her some small part of the magic he’d taken back. A very minor part. She could sense how vast a pool of power lay within the mountain and the lake and the lands of Coniston’s domain, all focused on the man in front of her, like all the sky’s sunlight gathered to a lens to make one piercing ray.
“My daughter will go with you to bring the cauldron back to me,” said Coniston to Merlin and Vivien. He handed Susan to them as if changing partners in a dance, and they drew her in to stand close between them.
“I will?” asked Susan.
“I am the Keeper of the Copper Cauldron,” said Coniston. “After he entrapped me and took my magic, Southaw carried away the cauldron to his own demesne. It must be brought back and once more kept safe in the deep places. That seems to me fitting business for you booksellers.”
“Yes,” said Vivien. “It is.”
“Do you know exactly where the cauldron is?” asked Merlin. “Southaw seems to have extended his realm while Merrihew . . . we . . . were not doing our job.”
“Susan will find it,” said Coniston. “I have given her something of my strength. So you must not kill her, as you did one of my children long ago, in the years of ice, when the lake froze from end to end.”
“We did? I mean . . . no . . . we’ve stopped doing that. Anyway, Susan is . . .” Merlin was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. “Susan is special.”
“I tire of this mortal form,” said Coniston suddenly. “And I have spent too much of my strength. I must rest in the heart of the mountain, until the year’s end comes round again. I thank you, daughter, for freeing me.”
He leaned forward, kissed Susan very formally on top of the head, and stepped back into the grave. His feet sank into the gray shale as if it were quicksand.
“I have taken in the fragments of the Cauldron-Born. The knockers shall burn them in the lower fires, with the corpse of the Merrihew, the ashes to be strewn in the deepest chasms that extend beyond even my ken,” said Coniston. “And I have stopped the hearts of the mortal evildoers below, who were waiting for Southaw’s return.”
He began to sink more swiftly, raised his hands above his head, and the stones that had blown away began to shuffle back across the crest and rearrange themselves, rebuilding the platform and then the cairn.
Susan, Merlin, and Vivien backed away to make room, knocking over the headless body of Holly, which rolled a short distance before crumbling into nothing, leaving only the anorak, the clothes beneath, the boots, and the silver watchband. Vivien picked that up, held it close to her eye for a few seconds, and put it in her pocket.
“Very old and not made by Harshton and Hoole,” she said. “Which is something of a relief. One traitor is enough.”
“Merrihew probably was working on her own,” agreed Merlin. “Aided by Thurston being so damn lazy, of course. And others, unwittingly. Who would question Merrihew’s orders, after all? Is your leg okay, Susan? We need to get moving.”
“We do?” asked Susan plaintively.
“Yes,” said Merlin.
“Isn’t it all over now?” asked Susan.
“No,” said Merlin and Vivien together.
Susan sighed, sat down on a rock, and extended her leg. The knife was back in the ruler pocket, though she couldn’t remember putting it there. “I did need the knife, Vivien. But not the salt, I guess.”
“Oh, maybe for this,” said Merlin, taking a wax-paper packet out of his coat. “Someone left this behind at a campsite below—”
Susan grabbed the package and opened it in a single motion. A homemade
roast beef and lettuce sandwich on perfect sourdough bread. She took a bite and chewed vigorously, swallowed, and looked at Vivien as she felt for the second packet of salt in her pocket.
“It does need salt! You’re amazing, Vivien.”
“I think I could have seen more clearly and saved us all a lot of bother,” replied Vivien sardonically, watching Susan open the sandwich and sprinkle on the salt. Her hands shook a little, but steadied.
“Let me look at your leg,” said Merlin, kneeling down in front of Susan.
“I think it’s okay,” mumbled Susan through a mouthful of bread and roast beef.
There was lots of blood on her boiler suit, and a huge tear where the bullet had ripped through, but it didn’t hurt anymore. She shivered as Merlin’s fingers probed the rip and then lightly touched the skin beneath. His silver hand felt slightly warmer than his right.
Susan choked a little and Merlin looked up.
“Did that hurt?” he asked anxiously. “I can’t see or feel a wound at all.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” coughed Susan. “Um, my father, when he gave me that bit of magic, I think he fixed it up.”
“Oh, right,” said Merlin, standing up. “We really need to get going, then. I thought I might have to carry you.”
“So what happens now?” asked Susan wistfully. “I had that minute of hoping we could be . . . normal. Normal-ish, in your case. Isn’t Holly . . . or Southaw, or whatever he actually is . . . finished?”
“No. He was only banished from here,” said Merlin. “He’s lost the physical form of Chief Superintendent Holly, and the charm that disguised him from those who might see him as he really is. But Southaw is a very powerful Old One, he commands many lesser entities, and he has the Copper Cauldron. He might still be able to command his gangsters as well, I don’t know. He might even be able to remake his mortal shape. There’s no telling what he can do, or what he wants to do, for that matter.”
“He said the whole point of seizing Father’s power was so he could get together criminals and creatures of the Old World to kill you booksellers.”
“What! We have to warn them!” exclaimed Merlin. He started down the path, and for the first time Susan fully took in that he and Vivien were not only in evening dress but had no shoes, their feet already bloodied from many small cuts and undoubtedly very cold. Susan’s feet even felt cold through her Docs, particularly as she wasn’t wearing winter socks.
“You haven’t got shoes!”
“We’re well aware of this,” said Vivien. “Come on.”
She started after Merlin, flapping her hands to clear a particularly thick waft of fog. Susan followed her.
“And why are you all dressed up?”
“Silvermere!” called out Merlin.
“Are we going back there, through the tarn?”
“Definitely not! We might get stuck or lose a week, or lose you again.”
“So you missed me?”
“Yes!” cried Merlin, and there was such honesty in his voice that Susan didn’t know how to reply and instead focused on her feet and the effort of not slipping on the loose rocks herself, and not thinking at all about how she might have misjudged him and perhaps she should give him a chance, and maybe it would work out, and it would be fun anyway and life was too short—
“Where exactly are we going, Merlin?” asked Vivien, interrupting Susan’s runaway thoughts.
“The village below,” said Merlin. “Phone first. The Grandmother might have warned Thurston or one of the even-handed but we can’t count on that. How long do you reckon until Southaw gets back to London, Viv . . . he is a London entity, isn’t he?”
“Oh yes, one of the major malevolences,” said Vivien, pausing to catch Susan, who had tripped and was about to fall past her. “Careful, Susan. Uh, I don’t know how swiftly he can get back . . . a discorporate entity, out of its own bounds . . . it’s not something I’ve studied. I mean, if he keeps that smoky raven thing going and flies at the speed we saw, maybe five or six hours? If nothing stops him; I mean, he must be trespassing on many other Old Ones’ domains.”
“Southaw’s had eighteen years of forcing oaths of loyalty without bookseller interference,” said Merlin. “Who knows how far his suzerainty extends now? In both the Old World and the New? Besides, he’s got the Copper Cauldron’s powers.”
“Yes,” said Vivien. “Susan . . . where is the cauldron?”
“I don’t know—” Susan started to say, but then she realized she did know, though in an abstract way. It would take a bit of figuring out. “Southeast, quite a distance. I guess towards London. Underground, in some sort of chamber . . . kind of earthy, with tree roots . . . I need to be closer. . . .”
The fog came with them down the mountain, heavy and far wetter than it had been up above. It was her father’s work, Susan knew, so she wasn’t surprised they met no one climbing up. When they got to the Walna Scar car park it was empty, save for two late-model Range Rovers. A blue one containing two dead men and two dead women, and a green one with three dead men. All of them were dressed for outdoor pursuits in brand-new clothes, some with the tags still on. Susan might have thought they were asleep, if her father hadn’t mentioned stopping the hearts of evildoers below who were waiting for their boss.
Merlin opened the passenger door of the closest car and lifted the flap of the dead man’s anorak pocket, revealing the butt of a Colt .45, and there was the hilt of a knife sticking out of his boot top. There was a sawn-off shotgun in a bag in the footwell, and a quick glance at the others showed they were also all well-armed, their weapons barely concealed.
“Best not to cross your dad,” said Merlin. “I wonder if I should have checked with him if it was okay to ask you out, Susan.”
“I make my own decisions on that,” said Susan. “And I do the asking out.”
“And what have you decided?” asked Merlin. He looked back for a moment, a very Brontë figure with the wisps of fog, all smiles and charm and romance. If you ignored the dead bodies in the car behind him.
“I always preferred Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights,” said Susan thoughtfully.
“Um, what does that—”
“I’d choose Mr. Rochester over Heathcliff, if I was going on a date. He always struck me as being of more practical use.”
“So you will!”
“I’ve decided that when the opportunity presents I will ask you out for a drink,” said Susan. “We’ll see about anything else.”
She looked at Vivien. “No warnings this time?”
“No,” said Vivien seriously. “You are definitely not like the people Merlin normally . . . well, Merlin’s relationships start more quickly I suppose and end not very long after with him sidling off. In fact I have to say I’m quite curious to see what happens. Of course, we have to survive long enough for anything to happen.”
“We’ve made it so far,” said Susan, finding herself unexpectedly full of something she thought must be mostly a rush of survival joy and not to do with Merlin. At least not entirely.
“Because we were here, in your father’s domain, and we were lucky,” said Vivien. “You could have been killed by Merrihew, let alone Southaw sticking you in a hole in the rock with your dad! And now we have to go up against him on his own turf, at the center of his power. Like tracking a wounded bear to its den. Only much, much worse.”
“But not by ourselves,” said Merlin grimly. He started to drag the passengers out and there was no disguising they were dead and not merely asleep. “Next time, it’ll be with lots and lots and lots of well-armed, knowledgeable, and powerful booksellers.”
“We hope,” muttered Vivien.
“Don’t be so negative and give me a hand,” said Merlin, dragging the first passenger a few steps and laying her down. “Or do you want to take the blue car?”
“You don’t seem bothered by dead people now,” said Susan. “I thought—”
“Only the innocent ones, killed by my hand, haunt me,” said Merlin
somberly. “Besides, these aren’t even ordinary gangsters. See those three tattoos, the rings around the forefinger? It’s a Death Cultist thing. These people signed up to serve Southaw voluntarily, knowing what he is. There’s always a few wannabe Satanists or Druids into human sacrifice around and malevolent entities who thirst for such blood. A tattooed ring here means a man killed; on the thumb, a woman killed; and on the little finger, a child. But I was talking to Viv about helping. You don’t need to.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Susan. She went around to the other side to remove the rear passenger. “Well, not okay. But I can cope. Particularly when they’re so neat, they do look like they’re asleep. He could have done that, couldn’t he? Put them to sleep—”
She had to stop talking and take a breath as everything hit her. She was dragging a dead person out of a car, and there were seven more here. Her father had casually killed them, like swatting flies. From the tattoos they were murderers themselves, but did that mean they deserved to die? And she could have been killed herself, as Vivien said; a few inches across and Merrihew’s bullet would have severed her femoral artery and she would have bled out. . . .
Merlin came around and hugged her. She leaned into him for a moment, feeling a sense of vast relief and comfort. For a few seconds, before she pushed him away.
“No, I’ll be fine, we have to get on . . . move on, don’t we?”
“We do,” said Merlin. “Do you want my book?”
“You found one?”
“In Silvermere. There’s a library. I think . . . anyway . . . you can read it in the back of the car.”
“I can’t read in moving cars,” said Susan. “But thanks. Are we . . . are you going to steal a car so we can drive back to London?”
Merlin shook his head.
“We’ll call from the closest phone. We have to warn them, and there’s almost certainly still a police alert out for Vivien and me. Normally, Merrihew would be the one to sort out any problem with the Home Office. She wouldn’t have had time to do anything this time, of course. Or perhaps the inclination. Come on.”