The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by William Meikle

  The Boy-King laughs.

  “The young lover,” he says, “Have you come to look for my bride? I fear she is out of your reach. But come...let me taste you.”

  There is a pull in Sean’s mind and he feels himself spiraling down into the Boy-King’s mind. But the woodsman within begins a song, something moves inside him once more, and the sight takes Sean racing away, backwards through the seemingly endless caverns before soaring out of a tiny cave mouth and up, up high into the cold morning air.

  He is looking down on a landscape of high moor and stunted trees but has no time to look closely as he is whisked northward, faster than a falcon, higher than an eagle.

  The sight is dizzying, and nausea starts to build inside, but the song strengthens and the air around seems to vibrate in time. The sick feeling recedes as they speed over the wall and north over a large forest. They speed faster, further, over hill and moor, until he is looking down on a large palace built of blood-red stone.

  He arrives just in time to see Barnstable carry Mary Campbell inside, before the sight takes him eastward. He is drawn back through a dense forest, back along a riverbank and past a small squat cottage at a bend in the stream, back to rush through another forest to a hillock where a tired man sits and blinks and...

  ...Sean shook his head to clear the sight from it.

  He rose immediately, and started down the hill, heading west.

  This wood was thicker, darker, and wetter than anything he had encountered before. His boots sucked in heavy mud with every step, and wet branches dripped clammy water down the back of his neck. But at least his trail became more obvious...Barnstable, carrying a body, had made deep imprints in the mud that were easy to follow.

  And after half an hour of trudging through the muck, Sean’s spirits rose when the wood opened out to a marshy stretch of riverbank. There was even a path of sorts where reeds had been toughly chopped and laid on the sodden ground. Sean took the opportunity to clean the heaviest of the mud from his boots before carrying on.

  He remembered what the sight had shown him...somewhere round a bend in this river he was going to find a stone cottage. So he was surprised when he turned the expected bend...and there was only more marsh. It was the first time the sight had failed him.

  He followed the track, noticing that it would lead directly past where he had ‘seen’ the cottage. He was still wondering why the sight had failed when there was a shifting in his mind again, like a firework going off just behind his eyes. He blinked...

  ...and sitting on the riverbank is a small stone cottage; little more than four walls with a thatched roof. There is only one small door, and an even smaller window. A thin plume of smoke rises from a narrow chimney. Although the day is dull and overcast, the cottage looks like it is sitting in sunshine.

  The building sits slightly higher than the surrounding ground, and has a channel leading from the river to the back of the house. In this channel there is a coracle tied up to a small wooden pier, and fishing nets and tackle hang to dry on hooks on the posts.

  To the left of the house there is a small garden laid out in vegetables, herbs and fruit. There is a tree carrying large oranges...a fruit Sean has only seen once in his life...and a tall broad-leafed plant hung with a long greenish-yellow fruit that he has never seen and cannot identify.

  The ground immediately surrounding the house shimmers. He steps forward for a closer look... and something inside recoils as his eyes begin to sting and he blinks...

  ...and pulled back from a fine spray of silver powder. But again, there was no cottage in front of him, only the uncut riverbank.

  There was a mystery here and part of Sean would have liked to stay and solve it, but he had already ‘seen’ where Barnstable took Mary Campbell...it was a palace, but not this rough patch of ground. He resolved to move on...just as the woodsman’s sight took over once more, and the cottage was in front of him again.

  He could not pass by...his curiosity was aroused now. He stepped forward, feeling only a slight tingle and a sting in his eyes as he passed over the sprinkling of silver powder. There was a silver handle that felt slightly warm in his hand as he turned it and pushed the door open. A bright light exploded in his face and he fell, stunned, to the rough stone floor.

  He came awake slowly. He was lying on a mattress of straw, and his eyes stung and wept.

  “I am sorry, young sir,” a voice said above him. “I thought you were one of the dark ones, but I see you are more than that.”

  Sean rubbed at his eyes until he was finally able to focus.

  “What did you do to me? And who are you?”

  “Silver nitrate powder for the first, and Alexander Seton for the second. I am at your service,” the man said.

  Sean was looking at the strangest man he had ever seen. His hair was long, straggly and gray, both on his head and his chin, and his eyes were those of a very old man. But the skin of his face was as smooth and clear as that of a newborn babe, and his hands were free from wrinkles.

  He wore a long black woolen coat with patchwork repairs at the elbows and pockets. Under that, he had a dirty shirt that had once been white, and a pair of black wool trousers coated in a multitude of stains. He was no more than four-foot-six tall, and the way he carried himself reminded Sean of old Menzies.

  But the old doctor would never live in such a place. There was straw on the floor, and a small log fire burning in a corner. A long table took up the rest of the room. On top of it phials and retorts bubbled and hissed, and noxious fumes drifted in the air. There were burnt and fused patches on the floor that spoke of spilled fluids and experiments gone wrong.

  Books were piled in every corner, books with strange titles in Latin and Greek. One particularly long title caught Sean’s eye: Apologie Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosae-Cruce Suspicionis et Infamiae Maculis Aspersam Abluens.

  Seton saw him looking.

  “Ah, the estimable Doctor Fludd of Bearsted...a fine man. He would be most perplexed by your condition. Which daemon would he call in aid of you, I wonder, you who are such a mixture of the Boreal and the Austral?”

  “I do not know what are you talking about, old man. Your words are unfamiliar to me,” Sean said.

  “The quest...the search for the true and real. The only reason to exist.”

  “You are an alchemist?” Sean said. “A seeker after gold?”

  The old man snorted and spoke, as if quoting from one of his books.

  “The extraction of the soul out of gold or silver by what vulgar way of alchemy is a mere fancy. But he who can, without fraud, gain or deceit, tinge the basest metal with the argent colors, hath the gates of Nature herself opened to him. And from there he can inquire into further and higher secrets, and with the grace of God, obtain them...That is what I do, and that is who I am, young sir. A humble inquirer into nature.”

  The old man had such a strange way of talking that Sean barely understood half of what he said. But there was no guile or pretence in the old man’s stare, and he didn’t protest when Seton lifted his head and looked deep into his eyes.

  “Yes. The dark one is there,” he said. “But there is also light. Tell me young sir...you have had dealings with the small men of the forest?”

  Sean nodded as he pushed himself into a sitting position. “Aye, but ’tis a long tale, and I cannot stay to tell it. I have a geas to fulfill.”

  Seton’s eyes went out of focus, and he spoke in a dull monotone.

  “She is already out of your reach,” he said. “For I see a great steed taking her northward. The Boy-King has requested her presence in Stirling.”

  Sean tried to stand, but his head spun and he sat back down before he had time to fall over.

  “You are underfed, boy,” Seton said. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “In truth, I do not remember,” Sean replied. “I have had little but fish and berries for three days, and only ale and pies in the days before that. In that time I have traveled hundreds of miles,
killed men, Others, and a woodsman, and lost a man I loved as a father.”

  “Ah, a tale. It is many a year since I heard a new one. The last time I rescued anyone, I ended up in the Low Countries, married to a countess, then got myself chained in a cell.”

  He smiled to himself, and his eye took on a far away look before coming back into focus.

  “But that is my tale, not yours...come…” the old man said, leading Sean to the tall table. “I will feed you, and in payment you will tell me your story.”

  “But I must be after her. I...”

  Sean tried to pull away, but the old man’s grip was remarkably strong and he was dragged to a tall stool. There was bread, cheese, fruit and berries piled there. Sean was sure they had not been there mere seconds before, but the smell of the bread, fresh-baked and still hot, had him salivating already.

  “I will fetch some ale,” Seton said.

  By the time the old man returned, Sean had already consumed half the loaf and much of the cheese.

  “Eat your fill,” Seton said. “For I am old, and eat like a mouse.”

  Sean ate until his stomach was as tight as a drum. Between mouthfuls, he told the old man his story.

  Seton made him go over the events on the woodsman’s stone several times.

  “They merged? His blood, your blood, and the dark one’s blood. Three in one? I have scarce heard the like. The vulture, the scorpion and the calacant together in one vessel? You merely lack the serpent and you will complete the great work. You are greatly blessed, my boy.”

  Sean laughed, but there was no humor in it.

  “Blessed? I am surely cursed...I have an Other in me.”

  “An Other? Oh...you mean a dark one. Yes you have a dark one, but you also have light, and balance. You lack merely the solvent that will finally release the quintessential elixir.”

  Sean laughed again.

  “I do not understand your words, old man, but they sound very pretty.”

  “I am sorry,” the old man said. “I read so much in ancient tomes that I come to sound like them. To simplify...you have the essence of earth, air and fire within you already. If you search out the essence of water, and let it in, you will be a complete being, privy to the secrets which God has wrought in this world, and all other worlds.”

  Sean shook his head.

  “The essence of water? What is that?”

  “I know not,” the old man said, and it was his turn to laugh out loud. “I am still looking for it myself.”

  Sean laughed along with him, spluttering pieces of bread and cheese across the table. That sent them both into peals of laughter.

  When they had calmed down, Sean asked the question that had been on his mind for some time.

  “The dark one in me...can you remove it?”

  “Remove it?” the old man looked shocked. “But why? You are near the Grand Arcanum.”

  “I care not for your alchemical fancies,” Sean said. “I fear it is too strong and will overwhelm me.”

  The old man suddenly looked serious and nodded his head.

  “That it may, for it is fire, and its nature is to burn. But remember boy...you are the Balance, and in the Balance is strength.”

  “But you have not answered me...can it be removed?”

  “I am trying to tell you,” Seton said. “It cannot be removed...but it can be controlled.”

  “I do not understand,” Sean said.

  “But you will,” Seton said, “you will.”

  Seton’s eyes became unfocused again, only for a second before clearing.

  “And now you must go,” he said. “You will need to be at Linlithgow Palace by nightfall, just to satisfy yourself that you are too late. I would tell you not to look in the Great Hall, but you are young and reckless...you will look anyway. Now go.”

  The old man shooed Sean away from the table and out of the door of the cottage.

  “Come back and tell me how the story finishes,” he said. “I love a good yarn.”

  The door shut behind Sean, and when he turned, there was only the unspoiled riverbank once more.

  “Remember,” he heard a voice whisper. “You are the Balance.”

  He turned to the track once more, but now he felt something he had not known since he found he was bitten...he knew hope.

  The way was easier now, although the reed pathway petered out only a hundred yards from the ‘cottage’. The ground underfoot was firmer, and the rain had slackened. It was no longer possible for Sean to follow the Constable’s tracks, but as he climbed through the forest and away from the river he was soon able to catch glimpses of the red-stone Palace. It was still in the distance, framed black against the pinks and purples of the falling sun. He had been with old Seton longer than he’d thought.

  Already his encounter with Seton was fading from his memory, taking on the quality of a badly remembered dream. All he could recall with any clarity was the last exchange between them.

  He mulled over what the alchemist had said.

  “You are the Balance.” What did that mean? He suspected that the old man was trying to say that the man-and-only-man part of Sean was capable of holding both the woodsman and the Other at bay.

  But how?

  He had managed to make the sight come at will that morning...and during the fight in the chapel the night before he had had control over the fangs in his gums.

  He was loath to give either aspect any further rein, but without practicing control, the Balance would never be achieved. He was still considering it when the path led him down through a copse of trees and out onto a wide-open expanse in front of the Palace of Linlithgow.

  He had thought from a distance that the building was built from red stone, but as he got closer he saw that it was blood running down the walls, fresh blood that steamed in the slight chill in the air.

  Sean circled the huge edifice, looking for a possible point of entry. Under the blood, the stonework was old and crumbling, but Sean was still staggered by its scope. He had thought Milecastle, and the wall it guarded, to be a marvel of engineering, but his home would be dwarfed by this structure.

  A pair of tall spiked towers rose two hundred feet into the air, their tops nearly lost in the low cloud. The flow of blood that coated the walls seemed to originate from the highest points of these towers.

  Beneath the towers, there were four storeys of wall topped with battlements and turrets, and carrying carved statues of demons and gargoyles that leered and glowered from every nook and cranny. The windows were little more than black holes, looking even darker amid the bloody wash on the walls.

  There was no movement, but twilight was closing in fast. He remembered the old man’s words...You will need to be at Linlithgow Palace by nightfall, just to satisfy yourself that you are too late. The old man had read Sean right...he could not leave here…not without searching for Mary Campbell.

  He strode forward towards a small oak door in the west side of the building. If he was going inside, he wanted to be searching rooms where there was still a chance of some sunshine.

  He wiped the door handle with grass before pushing the door open...he didn’t want to touch any of the red gore.

  Luckily, the corridor beyond the door was free of blood. As his eyes began to adjust, Sean saw that the hallway led off into the black interior of the building. He slid the long dagger from his boot and, wishing he had a supply of the bulb, he stepped inside.

  His first impression was of emptiness. The castle was quiet as a church. But where a church felt somehow alive, this building was an echoing, empty space.

  He had entered what, in an English manor house, would have been called “the servant’s quarters”, but it seemed like it had been a long time since there were any servants here. Years of dust covered the floor, and great silver spider webs hung everywhere. When Sean looked back the way he had come, he could see his footprints crisply outlined in the dirt. If he were to find any signs of life, it wouldn’t be in this part of the house.


  He went in further.

  After looking into his twentieth empty room he was on the verge of giving up. The only footprints he had seen were his own, and all the rooms had been bare, devoid even of basic furniture. The only living thing he’d encountered was a large, bloated spider.

  Then he remembered the towers. The blood outside was pouring from them, and blood meant a living creature. He went up the next staircase he came to.

  By the time he reached the spiral stairs that led up to the tower, Sean was beginning to think that the Palace might be inhabited after all. He still had not seen any other footprints, but there had been a high-pitched whispering in one of the corridors, and a far-off wailing, as of a woman crying. He clutched the dagger more tightly as he headed up the stairs. They seemed to continue upwards forever. The air was cooler here, and damper. Thick mosses hung from the ceiling and green slime coated the floor. Strangely, Sean felt more at ease, reminded somewhat of the towers of his home...until he smelled the coppery odor of the blood.

  He felt the fangs slide from his gums, and had to stop himself licking his lips. Disgusted, he stopped climbing, and tried to calm his thoughts.

  I am the Balance, he said to himself, I am the Balance. The fangs retreated, and Sean spat the taste of blood from his mouth. He kept repeating the words as he started to climb once more.

  Sean thought he was inured to any further atrocity the Others might commit, but the sight that met him at the top of the tower stopped him in his tracks and brought acid bile in his throat.

  All round the rim of the tower...a circumference of more than twenty yards...were hung pale, naked bodies. They were hung upside down from huge butcher’s hooks, and their wrists had been bitten so that the blood ran onto the walls below. They swung, like some obscene pendulums, back and forth, in a hypnotic dance of blood, spraying fine patterns of red rain across the top of the wall and down into runnels that led the blood away to other parts of the tower. Some of the bodies were blue, and obviously fully dead...but others were all too obviously alive, and the piteous moans reached him even above the rising wind. One of the bodies had turned and its fangs clicked loudly. But even their blood flowed and drained to merge with the rest.