The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  With a sigh, Mr. Bennick set down his pen. “There, I got it—though only just.”

  Ivy gazed at the line of runes Mr. Bennick had hastily transcribed onto the sheet of parchment. “It’s a spell, isn’t it? But forgive me, you have no ability to work magick anymore. How are we to use it?”

  “I will show you.” He set the journal atop the sheaf of parchment and stood up. “Come, we must go to the Wyrdwood—to the grove that lies to the east of the manor.”

  She gaped at him. “The Wyrdwood? But why must we go there?”

  “There is no time to explain. I fear we have already dallied too long, and we must be there before he arrives.”

  And he started for the door.

  Ivy hardly knew what to think. Was this all one final ruse to bring her under Mr. Bennick’s power? But no, he could have already done so. Besides, she knew now that she should never have questioned her father’s wisdom. Mr. Bennick may have been brusque, even harsh, in his manner. But that he was now, as ever, in league with her father, Ivy was utterly convinced. She started to follow Mr. Bennick. Only then she remembered.

  “Rose,” she said. “She’s in the parlor still.”

  Lady Shayde moved toward them. “I will keep watch over her.”

  Strangely, Ivy found herself comforted by this. She nodded to the other woman. Then she hurried after Mr. Bennick.

  By the time she reached the front door, he was already outside. She hastily put on her cape and followed him east, away from the manor. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were lifting. Despite this, the gloom upon the air had thickened into a peculiar twilight. Yet from what she could tell through the clouds, the sun was not setting, but remained high overhead.

  Mr. Bennick’s long legs carried him swiftly over the damp moor, and Ivy labored to keep up with him. Given the distance he maintained between them, and the fact that she soon struggled for breath, there was no opportunity to ask him anything more. They descended the ridge on which Heathcrest stood, then began to climb again. Then, just as the clouds broke apart, they reached the stone wall before the grove of Wyrdwood.

  “Open the way,” Mr. Bennick said.

  Startled, Ivy gaped at him.

  “Open a passage in the wall,” he said, his voice sharp. “He will need a way to bring it through. Quickly!”

  Ivy hesitated, then shut her eyes. She had not called out to many trees at once since she had been to the Evengrove, and then she had nearly lost herself in their roaring voices. But it was not so this time. This grove was not nearly as large, and while the trees spoke with many voices, Ivy found it was not difficult to raise her own above them.

  You must make a way through the wall, she called out with her thoughts, shutting her eyes as she did. Pry the stones apart with your roots. Push on them with your branches. Break the wall open!

  There was a loud crack followed by a brief din of rumbling and clinking. Ivy opened her eyes to see the trees give one last shudder and grow still. Loose stones scattered the ground, and in the wall there was now a dark gap large enough for a man to pass through.

  This astonished her no less than the sight of Mr. Bennick grinning. “Well done,” he said.

  “Now what?” Ivy said, her breath fogging upon the cool, moist air.

  “We wait. Though not, I think, for very long.”

  Mr. Bennick stood motionless, his dark gaze fixed on the wall. For Ivy’s part, she needed to move to fend off the chill, and she paced back and forth, her arms folded tightly before her. The last of the clouds dissipated, but the gloom only deepened. The sky was a queer grayish purple she had never seen before, and the sun was wan and dim, like the flame of a lamp whose wick had been turned down too low. All at once a gale sprang up, roaring through the branches of the trees.

  Only it wasn’t a gale at all, for the heather and gorse around her were not stirred, and no breeze tugged at the hem of her cape.

  “Lady Quent, you must quell the trees!” Mr. Bennick shouted. He backed away from the wall. Above its top, the crowns of the trees thrashed back and forth. “Quickly, tell them to cease!”

  Ivy’s urgency was such that she could not feel fear. Instead, she rushed forward, to the very gap in the wall, and flung her thoughts outward. There is no reason to stir. You are in no peril. Hold your branches and be still!

  She repeated these thoughts, and again. Gradually, the roaring noise lessened, until finally it ceased. The branches of the trees drooped and fell still; the only motion was the fluttering of old, dead leaves as they drifted to the ground.

  No, something else was moving in the grove. Ivy could hear a crunching and crackling of twigs growing nearer. Startled, she backed away from the wall. A moment later, to her great astonishment, a dim figure appeared in the crack in the mossy stones.

  “Well,” Mr. Bennick said, “you are only just in time.”

  And through the gap in the wall stepped a rather disheveled but nonetheless handsome man in a brown soldier’s coat. It was only after a moment that Ivy realized who he was.

  He smiled, and his face grew even more handsome yet. “Good day, Mrs. Quent,” he said with a bow.

  And Ivy could only exclaim, “Mr. Rafferdy!”

  THEIR REUNION was joyous, but exceedingly brief. Mr. Rafferdy had but a moment to reach for her hand, and Ivy clasped his own tightly in return. It was rougher than she recalled, and stronger. The same could be said for his face. The shadow of his beard was heavy on his tanned cheeks, and the lines about his mouth and eyes had sharpened.

  The effect of all this, along with his tousled hair, was to lend him something of a wild appearance—not that this was in any way unappealing. For all the grooming and impeccable fashion he had previously employed, Mr. Rafferdy had never been so striking to look at as he was that moment. Or perhaps it was merely how glad she was to see him that made the appearance of his face so welcome and pleasing.

  No matter the reason, before she could speak another word, Mr. Bennick was upon them.

  “Where is your companion?” he said.

  Mr. Rafferdy turned and gave the tall magician a long look. Then, slowly, he nodded. Ivy could only presume he had somehow discovered the same facts about Mr. Bennick as she had.

  “He is in the grove,” Mr. Rafferdy said, “as is our burden. I fear the exertion of carrying it through the gate has weakened him further.”

  “Then let us go to him,” Mr. Bennick said. “Lady Quent, will you lead us into the grove?”

  Though she had no idea what to expect within, Ivy nodded. She slipped through the crack in the wall and moved into the tangled grove. Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Bennick followed behind her. She had no need to ask Mr. Rafferdy which way to go, for he could only have come by means of the very gate she and Rose had stepped through to this place.

  Whispering to the trees, she led the way deeper into the grove. Then, just as the wall was lost to sight behind them, they came to the little clearing. In its center stood an arch made of ancient stones, green with moss and worn from eons of wind and rain. A few last sparks of blue magick skittered over the stones, tracing the faint runes etched upon them. On the ground beneath the arch were two things. One was a wooden chest, which she recognized as belonging to one of the upstairs bedrooms at the house on Durrow Street. The other was a man. She could not see his face, for he was slumped forward as he sat on the ground, his pale hair draping forward. But at once she recognized his frilled and ruffled black costume.

  “It’s you!” she cried.

  Now she knew how Mr. Rafferdy had learned the truth about Mr. Bennick. Her father had written in the journal that Mr. Bennick had known the man in the black mask—the Elder One, her father had called him.

  Slowly, the man looked up. His face was high-cheeked and aristocratic, and might once have been handsome in a haughty way. Now, though, it was a sickly hue of gray, and marred by darker blotches. Despite this, the man gave a wan smile.

  “You are Lady Quent, I presume,” he said in a rasping but perfectly enunci
ated voice. “I am pleased to meet you at last.”

  “But surely we have met on many occasions!” she exclaimed. “How many times have you appeared to me, and spoken to me from behind your mask?”

  He shook his head. “No, Lady Quent. Though I am sure you have spoken to someone inhabiting this form you see before you, know that it was not I who ever spoke to you.”

  Struggling to understand, Ivy looked to Mr. Rafferdy.

  “It is so,” Mr. Rafferdy said, meeting her gaze. “The being in the black mask who has spoken to you on occasion was never Lord Farrolbrook. Rather, he was inhabiting Lord Farrolbrook’s form, for he possesses no corporeal form of his own. He was making use of Farrolbrook to come to you. In the very same way, this being used the previous Lord Farrolbrook in order to approach and speak to your own father years ago.”

  “But how can you know this?” she gasped.

  “Because we spoke to this being ourselves but a short while ago.”

  Quickly, Mr. Rafferdy recounted to her the recent events that had befallen him: how a message in his black book had helped lead him from the battlefield back to the city, and to the house on Durrow Street, where the man in the black mask had been waiting for him.

  “But where is this being now?” Ivy said when Mr. Rafferdy had finished. “Why has he fled?”

  “Because he was forced to,” Lord Farrolbrook said, then gave a cough. “When he occupies any mortal form, even one particularly suited for him as is my own, it causes that form to weaken and decay. The more he inhabits that physical body, the worse the condition becomes. It is what led my father to an untimely death.”

  “Then this being is wicked!” Ivy cried. She looked at Lord Farrolbrook’s ravaged face with a feeling of horror, and wondered how long it would be until he followed his father to the grave.

  “Perhaps,” Lord Farrolbrook said, and his eyes seemed hazed with a mist. “Perhaps he was wicked, once. But now …” He looked up at her. “Now I believe this being is trying to make amends.”

  “By injuring you in this manner? That is no way to make amends!”

  Mr. Rafferdy gave a sigh. “Sometimes even a good man can do an ill thing if he is desperate enough.” As he said this he reached into his coat pocket, as if to touch something there.

  Ivy shuddered, but her horror was such that she could say nothing more.

  “Can you walk?” Mr. Bennick said, standing above Lord Farrolbrook. “If you can go on your own, Mr. Rafferdy and I can carry the chest.”

  The fair-haired lord drew a deep breath. “Yes, I think I can manage, if we go slowly. But do I know you, sir? You look familiar to me.”

  “I have spoken with you at times when you wore the mask.”

  “Ah,” Lord Farrolbrook said. “That is it, then. At first, I could recall nothing from those times when he was occupying me. It was like being in a black sleep. But lately, I have recalled a few things upon returning to myself, as one recalls vague dreams upon waking. I think that … no, I am sure it is his intention to come to you again, at least one more time.”

  “Then all the more reason for us to return to the manor,” Mr. Bennick said. He reached down and took Farrolbrook’s black-gloved hand, helping the slender lord to his feet. Then he and Mr. Rafferdy went to the wooden chest and picked it up. Ivy could see a glint of crimson light seeping out from the thin line between the chest and its lid.

  “It’s the Eye of Ran-Yahgren inside,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  Mr. Rafferdy’s eyebrows rose. “But how did you know?”

  “My father told me,” she said, then turned to lead the way back out of the Wyrdwood.

  THOUGH IT SEEMED there should be much to discuss, they did not speak as they made their way back across the moors to Heathcrest Hall. Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Bennick had little breath with which to speak, laboring to carry the heavy chest between them as they navigated the uneven terrain.

  Lord Farrolbrook was even more strained simply to carry himself. He moved slowly, painstakingly, and often stumbled. Upon one such occasion, Ivy moved to him, as if to take his arm and hold him steady, but he shrank away before she could touch him, and he gave her such a look that she did not try again to aid him, no matter how he slipped or staggered.

  Ivy had little capacity for outward speech herself. An inner dialogue more than occupied her mind as she reconsidered all that she had learned. When she had read her father’s words in the journal—in what was no doubt its final entry, the culmination of all his writings and riddles for her—she had done so in disbelief, thinking it utterly impossible that such a plan could be completed before the Grand Conjunction was in full effect.

  Only now, here was Mr. Rafferdy walking alongside her, helping Mr. Bennick carry the very thing her father had said was needed—the Eye of Ran-Yahgren. And there was Heathcrest Hall before them, just a short ways distant. As difficult as it was to comprehend, for they were but a few people to stand against such a ravenous horde, still logic dictated that it must indeed be possible—that they had among them all that was necessary to thwart the intentions of the Ashen.

  There was only one thing Ivy did not understand. It seemed that all of the pieces of the keystone would be necessary to do what her father had suggested, yet they lacked half of them, and Mr. Bennick had said nothing about this. But perhaps in her haste to read the entry in the journal, she had misunderstood some aspect of the design.

  Well, she would ask Mr. Bennick for more explanation, for he had read the entry as well. As they made their way up the steps before Heathcrest, the purple twilight thickened. And the sun, though it remained overhead, continued to fade as one by one the planets obscured it. All the same, a forceful elation rose up within Ivy. For ten thousand years, the whole of the world had dwelled unknowingly in the long shadow of the Ashen. Only now, in but a little while, that awful threat would be forever removed.

  At least, so she believed for a wondrous moment. Then, as Ivy led the way into the front hall of the manor house, the flame of hope was snuffed out, and her heart shrank into a dark cinder. For all her thoughts and musings, there was one last thing she had failed to consider.

  “Good day, Lady Quent,” said the man who stood before the fireplace, which had been stirred up so it was blazing. The gray at his temples lent him a distinguished look, and the deep violet hue of his elegant coat complemented the large amethyst ring that adorned his right hand.

  That ring flared as he made a small flick with a finger. Across the long room, near the door of the little parlor, Lady Shayde gave a jerk, like a puppet whose strings had been plucked, then stood motionless once more, her mouth open, her black eyes wide and staring.

  Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Bennick hastily set down the chest. Mr. Rafferdy started to make a move, but Mr. Bennick gripped his arm, stopping him. Then the former magician took a step forward.

  “There you are, Gambrel,” he said placidly. “You are a bit late, don’t you think? The Grand Conjunction is already under way. Do you not need to go to your masters and grovel before them?”

  “On the contrary, I’ve arrived exactly when I intended, Bennick.” This last word was spoken with poisonous inflection.

  Mr. Bennick nodded. “Perhaps you have. Though I imagine you have not found everything here to be exactly as you expected.” He nodded toward Lady Shayde.

  “It matters not.” Gambrel gave a shrug, as though what he was doing required no great effort. Yet by the sheen of moisture upon his brow, and the tightness of his jaw, that was not the case. “As you can see, I have taken the sting out of the White Thorn.”

  “Yes, but it requires all of your will and effort to do so. You know her strength and speed as well as I do. If you turn your magick toward thwarting us, even for an instant, she will be released and will be upon you.”

  Given the hatred in Gambrel’s eyes, these words could only be truth.

  “It is but a minor inconvenience to me,” Gambrel said. “Yet I wonder, had Lady Shayde not presented herself, what did you thi
nk you were going to do against me? Is this really the best you could manage after all these years, Bennick? All I see is a witch with no Wyrdwood, a magician of scant ability, and that bag of festering meat the Elder One likes to shamble about in now and then.”

  “Be careful,” Mr. Bennick replied. “For you greatly underestimate Lord Rafferdy. The power of his House runs with great vitality in his blood, as it does in few men. He has already defeated you once—it was he who destroyed the gate in the Evengrove and trapped you for a while on Tyberion. I brought him here because I knew that, should you dare to contest him in a duel of magick, he would certainly best you again.”

  Gambrel did not answer immediately, and it seemed there was now a light in his eyes other than hatred. It was a glint of fear. Only then he bared his white teeth in a smile.

  “Perhaps you are right, Bennick,” he said. “I have been accustomed to being the finest magician in all of the arcane orders I’ve belonged to, but that’s not to say there is none better than me. Yet while I do not have power enough to bind your White Thorn and at the same time indulge Lord Rafferdy in a duel of magick, someone has kindly left an alternative for me.”

  And even as the ring upon his right hand flared with purple light, he lifted his left hand and pointed the pistol at Ivy.

  “The White Thorn is swift,” Gambrel said, “but so is a bullet.”

  Ivy held her breath, staring at the barrel of the pistol.

  “Lord Rafferdy,” Mr. Bennick said in a low voice. “Speak a rune of binding upon him. Do it now.”

  “Heed that advice only if you believe you can speak more swiftly than I can pull a trigger,” Gambrel said and pulled back the hammer of the pistol with his left thumb.

  Mr. Rafferdy opened his mouth, but he said nothing.

  “You are wiser than I gave you credit for, Lord Rafferdy,” Gambrel said in a pleased tone. “Now, Bennick, be so good as to give me the fragments of the keystone. I have three, and I am sure you have the others.”