He is standing on the wall of Milecastle as Duncan Campbell brings a sickened daughter to the Gate.
He is sleeping beside Mary Campbell as she lies on her back beside him, her eyes filling with tears.
He is fighting for his life back in Milecastle, and in the melee he doesn’t notice that he has been bitten…no more than a scratch, but enough to seal his fate.
He is lying on a stone slab as Lennan, the Woodsman gives him blood and life that Sean might live.
He is in the cottage of a strange little man who calls himself Alexander Seton
The memory vision stops, but not before he hears Seton’s voice, as if it comes from a great distance.
You only lack the water to complete the great Arcanum.
He still didn’t know what the phrase meant, but he believed he was about to find out.
The water serpent’s head bent closer, so close that Sean could feel the heat of its breath, could smell the heavy fishy odor that emanated from it.
Suddenly Sean remembered a previous vision, of a serpent not unlike the one before him. And then came a further memory…of the coiled mosaic in Linlithgow Palace. Panic began to rise inside him.
I am the Balance, he told himself.
“No,” a voice said, a voice he knew had come from the serpent. “But you will be.”
A black wave rushed towards him. Sean closed his eyes and fell into darkness.
“We were first-born,” a voice said in the blackness, “Earth, air, fire and water. And all that is, was and will be is part of us and we are part of them and all is all together. In the days when the stars were young everything sang that it was so. But nothing lasts forever, and the Balance is fleeting.
“We quarreled, there in the dark, my brothers and I. We quarreled because we could. And because we could, we were sundered, each to his own and his own to each, and my song washed into the seas like tears on a rainy day.
“And now the Balance is given sparingly to those that have the eyes to see, the heart to sing, the mind to live.
“Welcome to the song.”
The voice fell quiet. Darkness surrounded Sean like warm velvet. Feeling no fear, he drifted to sleep, rocked by the pounding of his own heart.
Martin stood on a small hill overlooking a huge expanse of moor. To his left there was a small waterfall formed by the joining of two streams cascading over a rocky outcrop.
“Will this suffice?” he said to Edward Hillman.
He watched the lad peruse the site in the same way that old Menzies used to study a chessboard. The boy pursed his lips, then nodded.
“Give us an hour,” he said. “And you’ll have your weapon.”
They had approached the moor an hour before, wary and quiet, but there was no sign of the Others, or of them having been there. As Martin turned away from Edward Hillman he almost bumped into Megan. She was staring out over the moor, cold fear filling her eyes.
“He’s here,” she said. “I can feel him, here in my heart.”
“Rollo?” Martin asked.
She didn’t reply, merely nodded, and spat on the ground at her feet before turning away. Her tears had stopped, leaving her eyes clear bright and cold.
“I hope she never looks at me that way,” Fitz said at his side, his voice almost a whisper. “I believe I might just die on the spot.”
“Aye,” Martin replied. “And be happy to go.”
The quartermaster stared out to where his wife had looked seconds before.
“Is she right?” he said. “Do you think they are there?”
“Sean Grant said so,” Martin replied. “And the word of an officer of the Watch is good enough for me.”
“And it usually is for me, as well, Sire,” Fitz said, but as he scanned the bleak expanse of mud and heather, there was doubt in his eyes. “But why even the Boy-King would choose this place is beyond my understanding.” In truth, Martin agreed with him. The scene before them was one of bleak desolation.
The sun had begun its journey down to the west, but it was all but invisible behind thin, slate gray cloud. The light was flat and no shadows were cast; a damp gloom seemed to hang everywhere. Even the cascade was silent now, its previous wild rushing stilled by the dam and sluice system that Hillman and his helpers were building.
After Martin had got his band arranged in a tight circle of men, wagons and horses around the base of the hillock, he went to see what Hillman was building.
The men already had a water wheel functioning in the gorge beneath the falls. It was spinning so fast it was almost impossible to see the individual paddles.
“Very pretty, sir,” Fitz said. “But what use is it?”
“Watch and learn, old man,” Hillman said. “It is obvious you were an innkeeper, not a miller, else you would know the power of falling water.”
The two men working with Hillman carried a contraption of wood, string and leather strapping over to the water wheel and began hammering the pieces together.
“You see,” young Edward Hillman said. “You can turn the circular motion of the wheel into an up and down motion with a series of cogs and wheels…and with the up and down motion you can create pressure and…”
Once more Martin was struck by the way Hillman made him think of the old doctor. Menzies used to make his eyes glaze over in exactly the same way.
“Just show me when it is done, Edward,” he said. “If it is as good a trick as the kites were, then we’ll all be happy.”
“It wasn’t a trick. It was science. And…”
Fitz clapped the boy on the back.
“The Thane knows,” he said. “He is pulling your leg.”
The boy looked at Martin, cautious, unbelieving.
“Away with you, young Sire,” Martin said. “If you have found a better way to kill Others, then I will make you a Captain of the Guard.”
The boy’s eyes went large, and he had a broad smile on his face as he turned away.
“Do you truly mean that, sir?” Fitz said. “You might see the cold fire in Megan’s eyes again if you play false by the boy.”
“Oh, I meant it, to be sure. A Captain of the Guard’s job is to kill Others. And young Hillman is passing good at it.”
“It’s not fair,” a small voice said.
Both men looked over to where Harold Hillman was helping to fill the barrels for the bellows.
“Edward gets all the glory. And all I get is donkey-work pumping water.”
Martin laughed.
“A Thane can have several captains, but he only has need of one minstrel,” he said. “Come down from that cart and sing me a song. I’ll decide later which one of you will get to sit at my right hand.”
Harold Hillman’s face lit up in a broad smile. He jumped from the cart. The sudden movement caused the cart to sway slightly. There was a loud crack, and the whole wagon fell to one side. Two barrels of garlic and silver laden water toppled to the ground and smashed, emptying a small flood down the small slope towards the moor.
The first, burning, Other came up out of the quagmire less than five seconds later.
Sean came awake slowly, but he was still deep in the velvet blackness.
“We were still young when the blood-lust came on my red brother,” the voice said, continuing as if there had been no pause.
“The fire was consuming him, and the rest of us had no defense against its power. So we called on the Maker, and the Maker made us flesh, so that we were neither one thing nor the other and we had no Balance. But the maker saw that my red brother’s fire was quenched, and it was good.
“And for millennia all was as it was and we were together in the flesh. And many things rose and lived and fell again to be with the maker. And our red brother was quiet and it was good.“
Then came man.”
Somewhere out in the deep black Sean could see a pale gleam, like the moon seen through a cloud.
“My red brother and man were natural brothers in blood, and the fire grew once more.
“And since then the Balance has become ever harder while the fire grows ever stronger. But the Maker is kind, and he gives the Balance where he will, in order to quench the fire, for a while at least.
“Welcome to the Balance.”
The pale gleam blazed suddenly brilliant white, banishing the black. Sean fell forward, face first into bitingly cold water.
“Others!” Fitz shouted, and leapt onto the cart containing the remaining bellows and barrels. “To arms!”
The encampment was a sudden flurry of activity as men groped for weapons while other troopers tried to calm horses suddenly panicked by the commotion.
Martin jumped up beside Fitz and took the other side of the bellows. Together they turned and pointed the weapon down the slope.
They faced a scene from hell. Martin thought he’d seen the full scale of the effects of the garlic and silver, but it was now doing its worst under the damp soil. The things that pushed their way to the surface were already fused and melted…squirming, wormlike things like giant maggots… maggots that popped and hissed as the blue flame burned over and through them.
But already Others further down the slope were pushing themselves from the soil, coming up out of the ground with wet, sucking, noises that Martin could hear even above the rising screams of those dying for the second time.
“Aim over the top of the burning ones!” Fitz shouted.
Martin nodded, and together they started up the bellows, and the screaming went up a notch.
The next ten minutes passed in a blur of noise and gunfire, with Martin and Fitz emptying eight barrels of garlic and silver into the moor. Thick greasy smoke hung in the air, and the stench of death stuck in the back of Martin’s throat.
He looked over the top of the bellows and saw Fitz smiling grimly back at him.
The ground for more than thirty yards beneath them was a sodden mass of mud and molten flesh that steamed and bubbled as it cooled. There was no trace of any Others…none that moved at any rate. Martin looked around his troopers…he had not lost a single man.
Harold Hillman stood in front of Martin, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all my fault, I broke the cart, and…”
Martin stepped down from the cart and gathered the boy to him.
“The cart broke. You did not…if it is anyone’s fault it was mine for not having the cart checked. Now come. A victory in battle calls for a song, not tears.”
Soon Harold Hillman was leading the troop in song.
“That was well done, sir,” Fitz said. “Mayhap Megan will look kindly on you, after all.”
“I hope I have time to see it,” Martin said, looking towards the sky. “For I fear night is nearly on us…and there is plenty more room out on that moor for more of the bastards.”
Sean spluttered and coughed as he swallowed a mouthful of water, and managed to push himself up onto his feet at the second attempt. He stood in little more than a foot of water. The loch stretched away from him, flat and featureless. Sean was shocked to see that it was getting dark. He had no idea how long he had been standing in the water, but he had no sensation of cold. In fact, he had no sensation of anything.
From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of white reflected in the water below. It was only when he put out his hand to investigate that he realized that what was being reflected was his own face.
He studied the back of his hands. If they were anything to go by, his face was white indeed. He turned both hands over. His palms were brilliant white, and completely unlined, as if he was carved from the finest marble. But his skin was warm, and, testing, he found he still had a heartbeat, although he was unsure if his blood yet ran in him, for he could see no sign of veins.
A strange calm had settled on Sean. For the first time since his experience with the woodsmen he did not feel on edge. He could no longer sense the raving of the Other inside, but he felt strong…strong and fearless.
“My soul is empty,” he whispered, and for the first time began to realize what the woodsmen meant when they said it. The air around him tingled and rang in a low bass note, counterpointed by a tuneful whistle that rose up from the loch itself. Behind him the trees hummed, dancing in the wind, and Sean laughed in joy as he saw it. The laugh stilled as he turned his head eastward.
There was a discordant crash in his ears, a ripping scrape like metal upon metal. And even as Sean looked, a red haze seemed to rise up from the East, a haze that pulsed and grew. It was from this that the disruption came, and Sean immediately moved towards it. The Boy-King was there, and Mary Campbell. But more importantly, the Balance was disrupted. And he knew how to fix it.
Martin addressed his troopers just as the last of the daylight was leeching out of the sky.
“The Protector is coming,” he said. “And he will rid the land of the Maid once and for all.”
The men cheered as one, and the sound echoed around the moor.
“He asks that we, his eyes and ears in the north, keep the Maid warm till he arrives. What say you men? Shall we begin the revels early?”
Again the men cheered.
“Master Hillman. Are we ready?”
“Aye, sir,” the lad said.
“Then let them come!” Martin shouted. Once more a cheer went up, then silence fell on the moor as the sun finally dropped over the horizon and night came to Culloden.
They stood, tense and expectant, while the darkness deepened around them. At one point a shot rang out, followed by a sharp volley of four shots before anyone had time to think.
“In Jesu’s name, man. Why did you go and shoot a crow?” a voice suddenly called out, and a ripple of nervous laughter ran round the circle.
That went some way to lower the tension and, after an hour with no further incident, Martin had the men stand down.
“Are you sure it’s safe, sir?” Fitz said.
“By no means,” Martin replied. “But they’re apt to shoot each other if we keep this up. Post double guards by all means, but get the rest of them fed. It could be a long night.”
Ten minutes later Martin walked up to the hill to see what manner of thing young Hillman had built.
The water wheel was still in place beneath the cascade, but now it was joined to an outlandish contraption of wood and rope. The wheel seemed to be turning an axle as thick as a man’s arm. That axle in turn was attached to a bewildering array of cogs and wheels that ended in a plunger that was currently pounding up and down twice a second inside an empty barrel.
“I’m loath to ask,” Martin said. “But what does it do?”
Young Hillman looked up from his kneeling position beside the barrel. He looked exhausted, but there was a huge grin on his face.
“We’re nearly ready, Sire,” he said. “Give me five minutes. I just have to attach the inflows and the hose for the outflow and you shall have a demonstration of the power of water.”
The boy stepped over towards the axle, and pulled a lever next to a large cog. The water wheel kept turning, but the plunger in the barrel stopped abruptly.
“Is it broken?” Martin asked, suddenly realizing how little he knew in the face of the lad’s invention.
“No, Sire,” Hillman said. “’Tis merely a safety device to stop taking someone’s hand off. It works by taking one of the cogs out of the system temporarily and…”
Martin tuned the boy out…not by intent, but he suddenly felt like he was once more at his lessons with old Menzies, and the sudden intensity of emotion of the memory almost brought him to tears. He was clearing his eyes when he became aware that young Hillman was watching him warily.
“Sire?” the lad said.
“It’s all right,” Martin said. “I’m not about to go Berserker on you.”
The young man looked so distraught that Martin had to laugh. “Forgive me, Master Hillman, I am a mite distracted at the moment. I will leave you to your task…else that five minutes might turn to twenty.” The boy looked relieved to be dismissed. Marti
n was about to ask another question, but young Hillman was already back at work, deeply engrossed in hooking a hose to a faucet attached to the barrel in which the plunger stood.
“How goes it?” Fitz asked when Martin returned to the line.
“Oh, it goes well,” Martin said. “I’m still not sure what it does, but it goes very well.”
Fitz was about to reply when the first droning notes of the Others’ pipes drifted across the moor. Out in the dark a drum took up the beat, and another joined in. Soon the night was pounding with the throb of drum and screech of pipes.
Martin felt the rage build in him…the need to rip and tear.
“I am the Balance,” he told himself, and began to hum the Woodsman’s song. Once more it was enough to keep the wolf at bay, but the drums beat louder still. Battle was coming, and Martin prayed to the heavens that he be allowed to see it through as man and only man.
He would not have long to wait to find out if his prayers would be answered.
“Here they come,” a voice yelled out along the line. Martin jumped up beside the bellows once more and Fitz joined him. “One more time, old man?” Martin said. “One last time,” Fitz said. “We can only hope,” Martin replied. Then there was no more time for talk.
Sean was aware that he was running faster than he ever had in his life, faster than any man had ever run, faster even than the swiftest deer.
He was on his third hour heading east, yet he felt no strain, no tiredness. The red haze he could see to the east was closer now, and the sense of ‘wrongness’ bit deeper.
“I’m coming for you,” he whispered. And, as if his desire had made it so, he found himself once more inside the mind of the Boy-King, looking out over the blackness of a dark moor.
“Ah, the young lover returns,” the now familiar voice of the Other said. Sean felt a probe in his own mind, but he cast it aside as if it was no more than a fly in his ear. He felt the Other try again, so Sean let him in, let him see what the “Grand Arcanum” had made. The Other recoiled, and Sean was aware of his surprise.
“I am beyond your power now, milord,” Sean said. “Mayhap it is your turn to bend the knee.”
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