Wyntertide

by Caldecott, Andrew

  ‘I am, Dad, honest! They go to a bridge to light the pyre – only they haven’t built it. Your pontoon-thingy isn’t there.’

  Bert stared at his daughter and then at the river surging around the platform. There was indeed no means of crossing, a serious breach of ritual.

  Thomes felt all eyes fixed on him, very gratifying. As the Apothecaries reached the end of the South Bridge, he tugged the chain beneath the Hag, the crossbar snapped back, hooks released and beneath the skin motors whirred. Synchronised wings flapped and the Hag rose above the crowd before skimming over the Rother and the Island Field to a perfect landing on the gibbet above the pyre.

  Uncomfortable silence yielded to tumultuous applause.

  The Apothecaries walked on to the eastern shoreline. By now the onlookers had registered the absence of any bridge. Surely the immaculate Master would not wade?

  Thomes readied the device Scry had designed and tested as his Guildsmen held back the crowd. He leaned backwards, opened his mouth wide, stabbed his head forward and spewed a gout of flame across the river into the lower reaches of the pyre. Flames leaped high. For a fleeting moment the Hag held its form like a phoenix, an image of renewal and rebirth.

  Bomber watched with mixed feelings. Had the Guild’s frenetic work been devoted to merely enhancing its role in Vulcan’s Dance? She could see no sign of the strange silver sticks stored in the Master’s study. It must be part of some wider game.

  Orelia caught the similarity between Hag and Fury. Scry, honorary member of the Apothecaries and chair of the Lazarus Night Committee, had excelled herself in seeding omens for Wynter’s return.

  ‘Orelia?’ She recognised the voice: Ember Vine, the town’s outstanding sculptress and an occasional browser at Baubles & Relics. ‘Talking shop in your own shop can’t be much fun. Could you drop in – I’ve a problem to share?’

  Orelia’s politically inquisitive visitors had dwindled to a trickle and she needed energising. Ember Vine might be fifteen years older, but her Bohemian outlook made her a kindred spirit.

  ‘Say, Monday at nine?’ added the sculptress.

  Orelia caught an unfamiliar thread of angst in Vine’s voice. ‘If it’s politics, I wouldn’t waste your time. I’m not going to win,’ she said. ‘You must know that.’

  ‘I trust you, and so do others. It’s a more important commodity than you realise.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But it’s not about politics; at least I don’t think it is.’

  ‘Monday at nine, then,’ Orelia agreed, as Vine melted away into the crowd, as if anxious not to be seen with her.

  Nearby, Mrs Finch, having caught sight of her estranged husband, put an arm around their son and nestled closer to Snorkel, just to deepen the wound.

  *

  7.30 p.m. Families placed their fireflies on the launching runnels, watching the flight, awaiting with trepidation the scorers’ marks. High above, Jones had the impression of a shattered stained-glass window doubled in the river’s reflection.

  Everthorne sat on a canvas stool with his sketchbook, well back. Everyone else sought proximity; he craved the open view.

  *

  7.59 p.m. In contrast to his private life, Boris was a model of exactitude on Guild business. He fleetingly registered a dislike of the First Chord’s swollen body and narrow head, which resembled a well-fed tick, before applying the lighter-stick to the fuse.

  No other firework in Rotherweird’s experience had surged a hundred feet straight up, propelled by a jet of red flame, before pausing and repeating the movement, until, high above the crowd, it burst into a crimson crown, sparks flying as if forge-fresh.

  The crown sundered, transforming into elegant silver letters:

  Fatherly Wonder

  Surely the mortar was spent? But no, the letters rearranged, silver turning gold:

  Herald of Wynter

  ‘Winter, winter!’ cried Rotherweird’s children, waving and

  clapping.

  Estella Scry rubbed her hands in glee; if only he were here to admire. ‘I do so love the old spelling,’ she said to her neighbour.

  Boris had no time to reflect on the double entendre; displays required quick-fire performance. He preferred multimedia ‘gags’ to mere ‘colour and bang’ as with his opening shot, Pot Pourri, whose slow streamers in lavender-blue and faded pink drenched the audience in fragrance. With similar surprises, the Guild’s display proceeded to its climax, Vulcan’s Forge.

  Tiny lights from the Polk Christmas decoration box winked green in the weave of Jones’ basket. Time to go. He leaned over the edge and held the lighter-stick against the main fuse, which sputtered brightly – and went dark as intended: within a protective sheath, a guard against the elements, flame raced along a network of tiny tunnels, sparking sub-fuses as it went.

  Despite a detailed briefing from Boris, Jones had forgotten this feature. He saw only a dramatic opportunity for gallantry. Using his lighter-stick as a boathook, he hauled the forge towards him. Subsidiary fuses offered a wealth of alternative ignition points. Leaping like a salmon, he grabbed the rim above Vulcan’s hammer – a mistake, as the plywood structure yawed under his weight and the divine blacksmith, anvil, hammer and furnace came to violent life.

  Below, the attendant Fireworkers gaped in disbelieving horror as the forge swung to and fro, with Jones silhouetted in a miasma of explosive colour. By contrast, his adolescent charges from Form VIB went delirious.

  ‘Greg-or-ius! Greg-or-ius!’ they screamed in unison, until the Town Crier joined in with a swiftly composed tribute:

  ‘Gregorius was a candle,

  Gregorius was a spark,

  Gregorius liked to dangle,

  Enlightening the dark . . .’

  *

  Still clutching the lighter-stick, Jones contrived a prodigious flip back into his basket, landing head-first, legs flailing, clothes and eyebrows a-smoulder. The forge stabilised, Vulcan regained his dignity and the Guildsmen hastily moved the basket as far from the forge as the wire would allow.

  No lasting damage had been done: the god in all his illuminated glory raised his hammer and struck the anvil, covering the sky in molten snow.

  Boris hurried to the hillock behind the main display where the Last Chord stood. The First Chord and the aerial forge had raised expectations to unprecedented levels and he feared anti-climax.

  He muttered a prayer and lit the fuse.

  *

  Boris need not have worried. Apocalypse rose without any whoosh, explosion or visible flame, silent as an ascending angel, here one moment, gone the next – until, higher than all its predecessors, a single effulgent light appeared and split into eight. Boris’ imagination ran riot. The eight grim signs of the Apocalypse? Have I launched a Doomsday device?

  Evidently not: the points of light resolved into letters and a mysterious summons.

  FOLLOW ME

  The crowd gaped in puzzlement. What was the Last Chord saying: Watch me or fly yourselves or support the rocket’s unknown creator?

  The first letter fell in a lazy arc to hold position some sixty feet up, lost shape and flared bright as a beacon. Slowly in a pre-ordained sequence, the other letters followed, the next at the edge of the Island Field, and the rest further and further away: the firework was pointing a path.

  The crowd obeyed, first stumbling, then picking up pace, the children leading the chase. Nobody gave up or broke away, even the strong-minded; Orelia, Valourhand and Everthorne all succumbed. Only Gorhambury, wary of where the path might lead, tried vainly to stem the tide.

  *

  Jones watched the surge. He waved and yelled, but to no avail; he had been forgotten – out of sight, out of mind. After his recent out-of-basket experience he decided to wait. Perched on the tiny stool, he reverted to his new discipline.

  Inhale. Exhale. ‘Quid faceat . . . ho, ha . . . laeta
s segestes . . . ho, ha . . .’

  Several stanzas later the basket jiggled. ‘Jones, you up there?’

  The gymnast peered into the gloom. The silhouette suggested a young man in urgent need of deportment lessons. ‘Obbers?’

  ‘We’ll get you down,’ bellowed Oblong, but the horseshoe-shaped gadget holding the vertical chain to the lateral wires had no obvious catch that he could see; he’d have to disengage and fasten it to the windlass to haul the basket down. The rest of the populace were already crossing the footbridge over the tributary at the edge of the Island Field and heading further south.

  He fumbled and fiddled, but the link held fast.

  There was a snap in the air . . .

  ‘Get on with it, Obbers!’ brayed Jones.

  Another snap – wing-beats – and Panjan alighted beside him. Oblong had never seen the bird up close, but according to Boris and Ferensen, Panjan’s misfit appearance belied a sharp intelligence. Panjan directed Oblong’s attention to an S-shaped link above the horseshoe by pecking at it. Oblong released the catch with the aim of connecting to the windlass, but woefully misjudged the pull of the balloon. Desperate to anchor it, he snaked his right leg round the chain – only to join the ascent. A rising breeze swept Oblong, Jones and the basket in a westerly direction. Panjan, apparently satisfied at this unhappy turn of events, launched into the night.

  ‘What the heck! Obbers?’

  But Oblong wasn’t listening: terror at the vertiginous drop revived his dismal memories of Bolitho’s funeral, further aggravated by the painful chaffing of the glacial chain on his inner thigh. He groaned quietly to himself.

  Above, Jones’ concerns quickly shifted to his involuntary passenger. He heartily shouted instructions: ‘Hold fast! Bear the weight! Lean in! Good man!’ As they accelerated, he attempted reassurance. ‘The altitude’s settling, we’re not bound for the moon.’

  They might not have been bound for the moon, but the looming shadows of the escarpment and Rotherweird Westwood drew ever closer.

  11

  Planetarium al Fresco

  An inbred desire for novelty drove the townsfolk on, their excitement intensifying as each of the eight letters – the eight beacons –

  spluttered and failed. The Winterbourne stream served as a hikers’ path in the dry summer months, but, now a vigorous brook, it halted the march. Beyond, the final beacon had settled over an open meadow hemmed in on three sides by woodland. On the far bank a rope fastened to staves surmounted by carved heads – Comedy and Tragedy in various guises – cordoned off the meadow. They had reached their intended destination.

  In the centre of the meadow stood a giant barrel with arms protruding like the branches of a tree. The first arrivals shouted encouragement to those behind.

  As ever, rank determined position. ‘Space for Mr Snorkel,’ hissed Sly, pushing aside ordinary citizens to make way for the former Mayor and his retinue, including the ubiquitous Mrs Finch. The Apothecaries retaliated, pushing their Master into the front row, flagged on either side by Scry and Strimmer.

  The crowd liked their Headmaster and made way for Rhombus Smith and his wife, and then Gorhambury and the other Guild Masters. Behind, parents lifted children onto their backs while the tallest onlookers obligingly kept to the rear. Boris removed his Master’s robe in a patch of thick cover and joined the throng.

  Orelia sat on a knoll some way back; her view unobscured. The structure’s shape bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the tree by the mixing-point.

  Everthorne joined her and whispered, ‘Someone has taken a great deal of trouble.’ She felt him inhale her hair as he withdrew. His fingers splayed across both knees, elegant, despite the strong forearms, and spattered with charcoal.

  ‘Draw it,’ she said, ‘when it fires.’

  ‘Fireworks are hell to paint. To catch the essence – I mean that fleeting existence from ignition to splendour to nothing – you have to go abstract.’

  He showed her a sketch from his pad with the head of a lighter-stick, a whorl of stars and a spent casing, all fractured and merging with each other.

  Valourhand had no interest in spectacle: the structure and rope meant a display, and a display required operators. She left the crowd and leaped across the stream into the woodland beside the meadow. Coiled roots and fallen trees made progress slow.

  Gorhambury examined the structure through his telescope; it bristled with cones and other irregular shapes. Smelling a serious breach of the Firework Regulations, he summoned Boris.

  ‘Well, Mr Polk?’ he asked in his formal mayoral voice.

  Boris borrowed Gorhambury’s telescope. ‘Call it a launching pad,’ he said. ‘It’s expertly done, but nothing to do with us.’

  ‘We should cross the stream and disarm it,’ said Gorhambury. ‘It’s illegal.’

  Boris pointed out two more structures, one on either edge of the meadow, the dim shapes half-merging with the trees beyond.

  ‘It’s more for enlightenment than entertainment, if you want my view.’

  ‘We should not be sanctioning rogue events, however sophisticated, Master Polk. I’m surprised at you,’ whispered Gorhambury.

  Boris responded with equal formality. ‘On occasion, Mr Gorhambury, you have rightly recognised a public-interest exception to our Regulations. This is another. We should look and learn.’

  Gorhambury was spared a decision as smoke started pouring from the central structure, followed by a numinous haze which gave the impression of cosmic dust. The crowd fell silent. A sphere took shape, blue with ribboned clouds: a planet emerging from Chaos as seen from space. A second smaller sphere, no bigger than a cricket ball, collided with the first in a loud explosion and another swirl of dust – from which a tailed body emerged.

  ‘Comet!’ cried several children.

  Scry’s face contorted, half astonished, half ecstatic. She had her confirmation: this display could only be Fortemain’s, so her quarry was there to be despatched at the due time.

  Valourhand, keeping to the edge of the wood where the undergrowth was lighter, stopped. Through the trees stood a wooden model of a tall rock, fashioned from light canes and canvas, with an open circular hole at the peak. It resembled the rock she and Oblong had seen in Lost Acre. As she looked, fireworks flared along its contour, only to fade away as the structure collapsed. Simultaneously, a replica of the same rock flared into life at the opposite edge of the meadow, but remained in place.

  Fanguin blinked: the last page of the monk’s narrative had been dramatised – only the henge had moved, not vanished. But he had no time to reflect, for Bolitho’s tree launched a dark shape which moved from horizon to horizon, swallowing a series of coloured aerial shapes as it went. Then high-spinning Catherine wheels transformed to umbrellas as the sky wept to the sound of artificial rain.

  Apocalypse had one last trick: the penultimate beacon reignited, followed by its companions, no letters this time, just blazing lights and an unequivocal message: time to go home. Overhead, as if on cue, dark clouds began to build.

  *

  Valourhand passed where the henge had been. The structure’s joints had been blown by tiny charges. A figure rose from the nearby undergrowth and darted away.

  She had never chased someone so fleet of foot. Her quarry ran, jumped and sidestepped in the unrelieved darkness. They climbed for a mile and the pace never slackened. With the advantage of her tube-light, she kept in contact until a stand of oaks halfway up the escarpment, where she abruptly found herself alone.

  She tiptoed round the clearing, spent leaves crackling beneath her feet. She classified telepathy as a physiological fact, not a mystical gift: a tuning between minds, electricity discharged by one brain and picked up by another. So now: her quarry was watching her. She twisted round.

  He made no attempt to hide. Sitting on a low bough, a study in nonchalance, he was more beaut
iful than handsome, a mix of knowingness and innocence, Adam after the Fall. As to his age, she had no idea.

  He slipped down, landing as gracefully as a cat. He wore long shorts, almost to the ankle, and a loose shirt. The laced boots looked curiously old-fashioned.

  ‘Hey – stop!’ she cried as he bounded away, and this time not even Valourhand could keep up. Bramble brakes, thick pockets of fern and half-submerged rocks hampered her on these higher slopes, but he jinked effortlessly over, round or through them all.

  She dropped to her haunches to get her breath back. Where does he live? Where’s he heading? Belatedly she remembered Orelia’s description of the treehouse on the Rotherweird escarpment and the young man who guarded it. That explained his speed. He knew the way.

  *

  Everthorne thanked Orelia for her company and trudged off homewards. He seemed sullen and unsettled, but she reluctantly concluded that only he could exorcise his demons. She felt adrift, a failure personally, politically and spiritually. Life had felt worthwhile with Slickstone as a resourceful known enemy, but Calx Bole’s wiles were intangible. She felt disengaged from everyone and everything.

  Tube-lights and lanterns were flickering prettily along the Island Field as she joined the Polks, who were bemoaning the absence of Ferensen when they most needed him. The final display must have been Bolitho’s work, operated from underground, they agreed.

  Fanguin joined them. ‘That book Bolitho left me . . .’ he said. ‘Well, it ends with an account of the comet’s last millennial visit. The author was an eleventh-century monk and he founded our church. He records the henge vanishing in foul weather – but what’s its relevance now?’

  Nobody had an answer, and Fanguin re-joined his wife.

  Boris raised a different query. ‘The last sequence, before the umbrellas – the dark cloud swallowing all the other effects – anyone have any ideas?’

  ‘How about Calx Bole, killing and changing appearance as he goes?’ suggested Orelia.

  Finch murmured, ‘I agree with our illustrious candidate. Bolitho is obsessive about Bole, but he wouldn’t just tell us what we already know. The cloud absorbed the green light but did not extinguish it; it moved on, absorbing the red light – and again keeping it . . .’