by Damien Love
“It’s ’azy. It’s like, the closer I get to . . . to what ’appened to me, the blurrier it is. It was dark, raining. They were carryin’ things. They ’ad some of the stolen paintings, two at least. But the robots, they was carryin’ something else. Something bulky, long and low. They ’eld it flat between ’em, one at the front, one at the back. They all ’eaded up the ’ill, into the trees. I went after them.”
“You couldn’t see what the life-sizers were carrying?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Okay. Remember this, Harry?” Alex’s grandfather unfurled the painting from his bag, held it close to his friend, as though trying to physically prod his memories with it.
Harry nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s one of the paintings they ’ad up there. ’Ow did you get that?”
“You got it, Harry,” Alex said. “You got it back from them.”
“Did I?” Harry scratched his chin. “That was good, eh? They took the paintings and the other thing to a place in the woods, I remember that. Place under a cliff. Big rocks all over the ground everywhere. Masses and masses.”
“Under the Devil’s Pulpit?” Alex asked his grandfather. “Where the rock fell and smashed?”
“Sounds depressingly like it.” The old man nodded. “Go on, Harry.”
“They took everything to these rocks,” Harry said slowly, going step by step. “I ’eard them talking, just snatches. Von Sudenfeld told them about the château and ’ow the people ’ad chased them off. Zia said something about leaving it till they were ready to go together, somethin’ like that. And then they were doin’ something. Moving among the rocks, chanting, you know, the usual malarkey. Yeah, that’s right: that’s when I grabbed the painting, they were too busy to see me, and it was just lyin’ there. But then there was a glow . . . something glowing . . . and then . . . I was running through the trees . . . and that’s all I can remember.” He shrugged apologetically.
“But the Shadow Gate, Harry,” Alex said. “You said they were talking about the Shadow Gate.”
“Yeah . . .” Harry turned to Alex’s grandfather. “That was as much as I ’eard though, just those words.”
“That’s it?” Alex said. “This is hopeless.”
“It’s not,” Alex’s grandfather said.
“It is,” Alex said. “Completely hopeless.”
“No, no. I mean, ‘It’s not.’ Remember, Harry?”
“Eh?”
“The message you left on my answer machine. You were trying to tell me something. You said, ‘Two things: it’s not . . .’ Ring any bells?”
“It’s not,” Harry repeated. He shook his head. “Sorry.” He tapped at his skull. “But there’s more . . . lurking; it’ll come back.”
“Not to worry,” Alex’s grandfather said, weary but determined. “You’ve shown us our next move. We need to get to this château for the last painting, and hope they haven’t already beaten us to it. Think you could find it again, Harry?”
“Ah.” Harry raised his eyebrows. “Got that. Memorized the address. Château de Saint-Clement, in Marsilly. Moselle, near the French-German border.”
The hotel’s owner came with news that their car would be arriving within twenty minutes.
“Just time for coffee and cake.” Alex’s grandfather beamed, grabbing for the menu again.
As dessert arrived, the old man rubbed his hands eagerly. “There are a million good reasons to visit this part of the world. But the schwarzwälder kirschtorte ranks among the greatest.” He took an ambitious mouthful, then waved his spoon in bliss. “I don’t care if it’s touristy: you won’t find finer Black Forest gateau anywhere other than in the Black Forest. Stands to reason. It’s a pudding that seems to have fallen out of fashion in Britain these days, Alex, but who knows what anyone is thinking anymore.”
“These cherries are top-notch,” Harry mumbled.
While the old men fell into reminiscing about great desserts of yesteryear, Alex pushed away his plate, too full for more. It chinked against the bowls of sugar and salt on the table. The sugar packets bore a print of a pen-and-ink drawing. He pulled one out to study it: an ancient castle, turrets against a clouded sky. He reached to examine a salt packet, then dropped it, pulling his hand back sharply.
A dim flash of pain had tingled across his fingertips, like a chill electric shock, so faint and brief he wasn’t sure he had felt it at all. He glanced quickly at his grandad and Harry. Neither seemed to have noticed.
Alex sat looking uncertainly at his hand on the table, feeling shadows crawling on his spine.
* * *
• • •
THE CAR ARRIVED. While Alex’s grandfather and Harry were busy with the delivery drivers, Alex slipped outside and around the side of the hotel. When he was sure he was unobserved, he allowed his weary body to sag and called his flier down.
He was exhausted, both from the effort of controlling the thing, and from the strain of not letting it show. As soon as the little robot landed on his palm, he let life fall away from the machine. He removed his hair from inside and tucked it into the watch pocket of his jeans, then blew into the panel, taking care not a single hair remained.
He was by now uncertain whether he had really felt a sting when he’d touched the salt, or just imagined it, a phantom pain brought on by his overworked nerves and mind. But he was deeply unsure that using the flier had been wise. He tied a sock around its head like a blindfold as he’d seen his grandfather do, then hid it away in his rucksack.
He found Harry inspecting the rental car. A 4x4 in a gleaming metallic flame color, it looked expensive and brand-new, the latest model. Harry kicked a wheel disapprovingly as Alex’s grandfather emerged from the hotel.
“Look at the state of this.”
“Well, yes.” The old man gave a sympathetic smile. “But needs must, Harry.”
“It’s embarrassin’. I wouldn’t be seen dead in the likes of this. It’s like a blummin’ clown car.”
Rain rattled the roof as they climbed inside. Harry turned the key and grumbled as he listened to the engine.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Alex’s grandfather asked. “I mean, what with . . .”
Harry turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Forget I said anything,” the old man said.
They sped northwest through a damp green world. The roads grew busier. Despite the fizzing in his mind, the combination of the big meal and his enormous fatigue soon had Alex nodding toward sleep. Just before he dropped off, the thought really struck home: he had brought Harry back. And that meant he had finally succeeded in contacting the power in the tablet again, directing it.
His process, the curious detail of focusing on Kenzie Mitchell, worked—even if he didn’t understand why or how. He was learning to control his power. It had taken seven hours, but he was sure that now he knew the way, he could find it faster. He could do it again.
XXIV.
OVER THE WALL
Alex woke as the car bumped to a halt by a country roadside. His grandfather was already getting out.
“Are we there?” Alex said. The dashboard clock showed it was not long after noon.
“House is about five minutes back that way.” The old man pointed with his cane. “But it wouldn’t do to just drive up and ring the bell. Bit of sneaking seems in order. So, I’m going in, you and Harry can wait—”
“No way. You’re not going in alone. I’m coming. Harry said they had guns. We might need . . . this.” Alex took out the toy robot.
“You’ve really worked out how to use it?”
“Kind of. Well. Not sure. It takes time. But looks like I can.” Alex nodded toward Harry. “It’s got to be better than nothing.”
The old man stood pulling his lip, then nodded. “I’m not keen on you trying to use that thing any further, either, Alex . . . but, this i
s the situation. And it’s a different kind of power from my father’s creations. Yes, okay, agreed. Grudgingly.”
Alex thought about the flier hidden in his rucksack, the faint sting of salt on his fingers. A different kind of power—he wondered just what his grandfather meant. He recalled the definition he’d read on his phone in the café, when he’d looked up the name David’s great-grandmother had yelled at him: sorcerers who may practice both light and/or dark magic. Light and dark. It was beyond him. But the idea of using the flier again filled him with apprehension.
And yet, it could prove valuable, and he knew he could do it far more easily than reaching the power inside the ancient tablet. He moved to pull the rucksack over his shoulder.
“No, leave that,” his grandfather said. He hoisted his Gladstone. “Got everything we need here. I’d rather you were able to move as fast as possible. Just in case. Okay, Harry. Keep watch for them to arrive. If we don’t come out in, say, twenty minutes, then . . . well. Improvise. Feeling up to it?”
“Practically bionic,” Harry said.
There was no way to retrieve the flier without giving away that he still had it. Alex reluctantly put the rucksack down, and climbed out after his grandfather.
Five minutes’ walking brought them to a stand of thin trees, through which eventually loomed a stone wall around nine feet high. His grandfather boosted him, and Alex sat straddling the top while the old man stretched to hand up his Gladstone.
Alex’s grandfather considered the climb, then stepped back.
“You know, I’m getting too old to be climbing walls. I think I’ll make life easy on myself. Could you toss down the spring-heels, Alex? They’re in the bag.”
Alex dropped them down one after the other. His grandfather fumbled the second, and it fell heavily by his feet. The old man stood staring at his left hand, flexing the fingers. The hand trembled. Alex watched with growing concern. After a moment his grandfather gave it a quick, dismissive shake, then leaned against the wall, deftly strapped the spring-heels over his boots, and leapt to join him.
He landed unsteadily, swayed, then straightened and winked reassuringly. Alex wasn’t buying it. Something was very wrong. He felt it like a jab in his stomach.
They sat among the branches that pressed around the wall, each surveying the landscape that lay on the other side: more trees, a glimpse of grass beyond. Scanning the scene, Alex found himself looking at the back of his grandfather’s head. The old man turned, their eyes locked, and it was as if they came to an unspoken agreement to acknowledge what they both knew: something was wrong.
“Are you okay, Grandad?” Alex asked. “You’re not, are you?”
“Hmmm? Oh, yes, I—” His grandfather started brightly, then stopped and gazed down. “Well,” he said, without lifting his eyes. “Truth is, I have been a little under the weather.” He paused again, considering. Finally, he looked up and smiled.
“Might as well tell you straight,” he said. “Although none of this has been how I imagined it would be when I told you any of it—I had pictured us sitting in a nice room by a roaring fire, with something good to eat. But here we are. So. I told you that I took my father’s potion for a little while, his elixir of eternal life. And then I stopped.
“I was about twenty-one when he first brought it to me. He explained what it was. Some of it, anyway. He told me he wanted me to take it, too, join him, and I was raised never to disobey my father. It sounded exciting, I suppose, this great secret. At first.
“His plan was to wait until Alexia was around twenty-one, too, and then tell her. But she was always one for sneaking around, snooping and spying. She must have overheard, because it turned out she found the stuff when she was about ten, and started taking it secretly on her own. Probably took far too much. She later said she’d decided she didn’t want to grow any older, because she ‘didn’t like the look of it.’ Funny thing is, Alexia hates children.
“It was a few years later that I left them. I was still a young man, and I stopped taking the brew long before I would have noticed any difference, anyway. For several years, well, things just seemed normal—I mean as far as my body went. There were no effects from the potion I could see. I had assumed that when I stopped taking it, that would be an end to it.
“Turns out I was wrong. Years later, I gradually started to notice I wasn’t growing any older, even though it had been a long time since I took it. Or, at least, if I was aging, it was happening very slowly. Some kind of lingering effect of the potion, you see. It was in my system, replicating in my blood, and, ah, keeping me . . . frozen.
“And, well, that rather complicated life for me. You learn that you, eh, have to disappear from your friends before they start to notice, y’see? Avoid having your photograph taken, that kind of thing. Keep moving. You end up rather alone.
“Harry was the first person I ever told, actually. I had him help me out in a bit of an escapade when he was a boy—there was a chimney and he agreed to climb down the inside, and it all got slightly more . . . supernatural than I’d anticipated. Harry seemed to take it in his stride, though, so I thought I might as well tell him about me.
“But then something marvelous happened. In the years after the Second World War, I noticed I had gradually started aging again, after all. I monitored the situation for a decade or so, to be certain, and it seemed like everything was back to normal. I thought the effects had finally worn off. Or, at least, I allowed myself to pretend that I believed that. And that’s when—well. That’s when I met your grandmother and . . .”
He broke off and cleared his throat. Alex felt his own tightening. The branches of the trees shushed around them.
“Well, that’s a whole other story,” the old man continued. “But, to get back to the point: seems I was wrong again, ha. The potion’s effects returned. I eventually noticed my aging processes had stopped again. But this time something was different.
“There’s been an odd cycle at work in my body, Alex. For years, nothing changes. Nothing ages. But then, well, it’s as if I go through a sudden rush. It all catches up with me and, eh, I can put on years, almost overnight. I can tell when it’s due to happen, because I go through a period beforehand where I begin to feel run-down—like flu, y’know. For some reason, it seems to affect one side of my body more than the other. A little numbness and stiffness in the limbs, lack of dexterity, general butter fingers.
“And, well, yes: I’ve been feeling that way recently. These exertions have been taking it out of me more than usual. You might find I’m not thinking at my clearest. Missing things. My decisions might not make much sense.”
“But then what happens?” Alex was lost listening to his grandfather’s tale. “I mean, how many years older do you get?”
“Well, hard to say. Varies. Four or five, a few more, a little less. Anyway, point is: when it really comes on, I’m not much use for a few days. It’s like a fever. That’s why the timing of all this is so bad—well, that and the fact that it’s the last day of April, which wouldn’t be good for this kind of thing under any circumstances.”
“But, Grandad, I mean, how many more . . . how much older can you get?”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself over that. Besides, I’m not feeling too bad yet, Alex, just a little peaky. Plenty of time. After it happens, after I age a bit, I usually feel particularly spry, actually. In the meantime—how’s about a lemon drop? I found a little place still makes them the right way. They’re really incredible. Give us a bit of a boost.”
Alex half-consciously took a powdery yellow candy from the paper bag his grandfather proffered. It was indeed delicious, although it did nothing to ease his anxiety. But the old man had already dropped down the other side of the wall, impatient to move on. Alex did his best to push his worries away and followed. There was nothing else to do.
They crept with caution until they stood at the edge of the trees.
>
“This must be the place,” Alex’s grandfather whispered. “Ugly old pile.”
Ahead, across a stretching lawn and past an ornamental garden gone to weed, stood a stern gray three-story house. A single door and four large shuttered windows were the only decoration on the ground floor facing them, a few more windows behind louvered slats above. Discolored concrete patches marked where repairs had been attempted. At the top left, stray creepers curled round from the side of the house, where Alex could see that the bare facade was relieved by a thick, green-red flourish of ivy.
“Hmmm.” The old man nodded, sizing it up. He pulled binoculars from his coat. “There’s a second-floor window around the side looks promising. Ledge looks large enough for me to jump up and get a grip. Think you could climb that marvelously convenient ivy? I reckon it should take your weight.”
“You want us to break in?”
“Seems the thing to do.”
“But are you—” Alex looked from his grandfather to the somber house and back. “Are you up to it?”
“Now, listen. Don’t start trying to wrap me in cotton wool, Alex,” his grandfather muttered, surveying the building. “Lots of life in this old dog yet. Okay. I’ll jump up and pop the window open while you climb up after me, and in we go. The question is whether there will be anybody in that room. But we can deal with that when the time comes. If we’re lucky, though, the place is big enough that we should be able to prowl around in there undetected for a while if we’re careful.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. Depends how many people are inside, of course. But back in my house-breaking days, this is exactly the kind of place Harry and I liked doing best. I’ll teach you a trick for walking quietly.”