Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  Phyllis turned and came down the steps. ‘It looks like . . . Calanais,’ she said slowly. ‘But it’s different.’

  ‘Arf!’ came the let me out yap from inside her bag. Phyllis placed Daisy gently on the grass.

  Clement looked all around, at the stones and the fields. ‘It looks newer,’ he observed.

  Phyllis nodded. The stones did look newer—they were less weathered, and hardly any of them were tilting. The colours of the rock were less grey and more pink, and the tops of the taller stones seemed to catch the bright sunlight and reflect it all around the other stones, almost like mirrors.

  At four places around the perimeter of the stones, four other wooden platforms had been built. They stood on wooden poles about nine feet off the ground, with stairs leading up to them.

  Phyllis looked to where the inner circle was, and she gasped. ‘Clem! It’s like a house!’

  They beheld the mud-walled abode that had been built in and around the standing stones of the inner circle. Its roof was thatched, and deep green lichen was growing thickly on the straw. The walls were dotted with small windows of ripply-looking glass; the panes lined with diamond-shaped lead frames.

  The great central monolith rose from the furthest wall of the dwelling, like a chimney.

  His stargazing belvedere, thought Phyllis. She felt herself tingling with anticipation, and she wished that Wallace Wong could be here with her and Clem and Daisy.

  ‘What Time is it?’ asked Clem.

  She took out her Date Determinator and switched it on. When the numbers stopped spinning and the lights stopped flashing, she told him, ‘Seven hundred and fifty years ago.’

  Clement said nothing. He brushed the ends of his handlebar moustache with his fingers, waiting. He felt that Phyllis should make the first move.

  Phyllis smiled. ‘Shall we see if anyone’s home?’

  ‘After you,’ he said, gesturing towards the front door of the dwelling.

  She took a deep breath and steadied herself—there were butterflies doing crazy stunts inside her tummy. Then she went slowly up the small path between some of the standing stones, and stood at the front door of the abode.

  Daisy came scampering over when she saw Phyllis at the door.

  Clement followed, keeping an eye out for any sign of the owner.

  ‘Hello?’ Phyllis called. ‘Is anybody here?’

  Silence. Complete, uncanny silence, thick like heavy curtains.

  ‘Man,’ whispered Clement. ‘It’s like everything’s stopped, it’s so quiet. It’s like the whole world has disappeared, and this is all that’s left . . .’

  ‘You’ve been playing too many zombie games.’

  ‘None of ’em have been this quiet.’

  Phyllis called again. ‘Hello?’

  Her voice seemed to hover in the air. It sounded brittle, as if it might be shattered by the merest waft of breeze.

  Still there was no answer. The silence hung all around them like an invisible cloak.

  ‘Try knocking,’ Clement suggested.

  Phyllis rapped hard, six times, on the oaken door. The sound of her knocking seemed to be swallowed up, and the noise came as little more than if she had been thrumming her fingers on her jeans.

  Daisy barked thrice, but her normally gunshot-loud yaps sounded like she was yapping from inside a balloon.

  Phyllis looked at Clem. ‘It’s like the place is soaking us up,’ he said. ‘Soaking up every sound we make, as though we’re not supposed to be making any sounds . . .’

  ‘It’s weird. I’ll try again.’

  She raised her fist once more and was about to repeat the rapping when, with not a sound, the door slowly opened.

  ‘Hello?’ Phyllis called.

  No answer.

  Daisy barked again, the yaps smothering into muffled squeaks.

  Phyllis stepped onto the threshold and looked inside. All was dim. The only illumination came from outside, through the small windows. In the shafts of feeble light spilling onto the earthen floor, a floating flotilla of dust particles danced and swirled.

  As Phyllis’s and Clem’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, they saw that the inside of the dwelling was deceptively larger than they’d thought it would be. In the far corner, a big wooden table was covered with sheets of parchment and paper, some of them rolled and tied as scrolls, others laying flat across the tabletop. There was a tall wooden stand nearby, and in it was nestled a big glass sphere.

  A high-backed wooden chair was set against one wall, and in the opposite wall was a fireplace. The grate contained fresh ashes. Next to the fireplace was stacked a small pyramid of logs and kindling.

  Phyllis sniffed the air. ‘Someone’s been here recently,’ she said. ‘That fire was probably lit last night.’

  ‘Call again,’ Clement said.

  ‘Hello?’ she called into the room, and Daisy gave another muffled bark.

  Silence.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ said Phyllis.

  Clement felt distinctly nervous, but he didn’t say anything.

  Phyllis lifted Daisy and put her into the shoulder bag. Then Phyllis stepped through the doorway into the room.

  Clement followed her. Neither of them had noticed the enormous rook that had earlier stolen the photograph, perched outside, high atop the monolith at the end of the abode. As they entered, the rook watched them, like a gargoyle.

  Near the door, Phyllis and Clement saw another table, which had some pewter plates and mugs and a basket of pine cones and apples on it.

  Then Phyllis grabbed Clement’s arm. ‘Look!’

  Over in the far corner of the room, a staircase descended beneath the ground. The stairs had no handrail or banister—they just led down into a hole in the floor.

  ‘C’mon,’ Phyllis whispered.

  ‘Oh, I hope that isn’t a tomb down there,’ Clement muttered, but Phyllis was already at the top of the stairs, peering down.

  ‘There’s a light,’ she said softly. ‘Candles, I think. Follow me . . .’

  Oh man, Clement thought, his face scrunched up so that his moustache splayed outwards like the quills of a nervous porcupine.

  Cautiously, carefully, Phyllis began descending the stairs. She could see no Pocket on this staircase, only the rough-hewn stone leading away into the chamber beneath.

  There were thirty stairs, and they opened onto a floor not of earth, but of wooden boards. The chamber was wide and long, and the ceiling was fashioned with vaulted arcs, dug into the earth and held in place by thick wooden beams.

  Six candles glimmered from candle-holders in the earthen walls, giving a soft, pale yellow glow to the place.

  Phyllis went slowly into the centre of the chamber. She turned all around, letting her eyes take in every detail. In the shadows at the furthest end of the room was a small bed, roughly made from wood and covered with sheepskins. By this was a tiny table, and next to that, another high-backed wooden chair. On the table, several scrolls and papers and feather quills were scattered.

  All along the walls, painted onto the compacted earth, were diagrams: stars, planets, constellations and strange symbols. Strange, spiralling symbols with tendrils reaching out across the walls . . .

  ‘Wh-where are we?’ Clement asked.

  ‘This is where he sleeps,’ said Phyllis. ‘This is where—’

  ‘WHAT ARE YOU?’ came a sudden voice, loudly, bursting into the chamber.

  They spun around to see a thin, white-haired man emerging from the gloom. He was wearing a long, dark brown cloak, and was glaring wildly at them.

  ‘It’s the guy on my phone!’ Clement gasped, his legs shaking.

  Phyllis had seen the man’s face before, but not just on Clement’s phone. She was so startled by his appearance, she couldn’t speak.

  The man raised his arm and pointed a long finger at Phyllis. ‘This is my dwelling!’ he snarled. ‘You trespass!’ He flung his hand up swiftly, his finger still pointing at Phyllis. Her feet left the floor, and she was thro
wn upwards, hard against the vaulted ceiling. Her shoulders banged the beams and she winced, while inside her bag Daisy yelped at the unexpected soaring.

  The man pointed his finger at Clement. In a blink he was also thrust up into the air, his backpack banging heavily against the ceiling.

  ‘Let us down!’ Phyllis implored, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Please! Let us down!’

  The man watched them as they dangled and wriggled up there, like flies caught in a bell jar. He reached into the folds of his cloak and took out the photograph his rook had swooped on.

  ‘Does this wickedness bring you here?’ he cried, brandishing the image of Alexander Sturdy. ‘For if he does, you shall not be leaving!’

  PART THREE

  The bringing forth

  Towards the Whimpering

  The newspaper headline was bold and large:

  NEW SUPER-HIGHWAY OF TECHNOLOGY TO BE UNVEILED

  Sitting in The Délicieux Café in the Wallace Wong Building, with an empty plate before him that had only minutes earlier had a huge breakfast piled on it, Chief Inspector Barry Inglis studied the headline with a squint of interest. He took a sip of his espresso and read the rest of the story:

  NEW MANTLE WILL PROVIDE ASTOUNDING ACCESS

  Professor Lorena Conyth from the Global Technology Network today announced the completion of a vast new super-highway for the internet and all cloud-based information storage. When implemented, she claimed, it will speed up web access by up to five hundred per cent.

  ‘We are calling this new highway the Mantle,’ she said. ‘It will be far more powerful than any information cloud already in place. The satellites comprising the Mantle will be located at so many places above the globe that there won’t be a single spot on Earth where internet coverage, and access to data, will be unavailable. With the new Mantle, every person in the world will be able to connect to everyone and everywhere, immediately.

  ‘One of the most exciting aspects of the Mantle is the speed with which data can be accessed. A photo, for example, will be able to be taken on a phone and instantaneously stored in the Mantle, and retrieved in less than half a second. The world has never seen speeds or accessibility like this.’

  The exact nature of the Mantle has been a closely guarded secret, but it has been rumoured that it will employ a new technology that has the ability to recognise a person’s unique individual characteristics, such as their shadow and breathing patterns, and limit access to personal information accordingly. Such speculation was not confirmed by Professor Conyth, although she hinted that the technology does use groundbreaking personal identification features.

  Professor Conyth said the Mantle would be unveiled early next week, and would be in universal operation by the end of next month.

  Barry put the paper down and had another sip of his coffee. That’s probably why there’s been so much trouble with the net at work lately, he thought. Why it’s been going down so often. Those boffins are probably messing about with all those satellites up there in space, so they can set up this new . . . Mantle.

  But, being the sort of man who never dwelt for a long time on the wonders of technology, he glanced at his watch, realised he was running late for work, said a harsh word under his breath, gulped down the last of his espresso, flung some money onto the table, said a quick goodbye and thanks to Pascaline and Pierre Ravissant (the café owners), and hurried out of the café to Police Headquarters.

  At the same moment, in the living room of his apartment across the city, Alexander Sturdy felt a sharp surge of urgency as he read the newspaper article. He threw the paper to the floor and sat, motionless, his eyes searing with impatience.

  ‘This escalates my desire,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Next month? They will have this thing operating by next month?’

  An image filled his mind: the walls of the world closing in, squashing in, squeezing tighter and tighter. Then something occurred to him and the squashing-in pictures evaporated.

  ‘I understand,’ he murmured, looking across the room at his crocodile-skin bag in the corner. ‘I understand now. This Mantle. This is the course that I must follow . . .’

  A deep scowl crossed his lips. ‘This is the step that brings me closer. The step that surely will bring him closer. Now I can take down my guard and lure him with what he so desperately wants returned to him. Now . . . now he will surely come!’

  Sturdy stared at the bag. ‘After all, my little friend,’ he said, ‘if a step nearer to the Great Whimpering of the World will not flush him out, then nothing shall!’

  And the bag flumped gently in the corner.

  Chandeliers we are not!

  In the depths of Calanais, Phyllis and Clement bumped against the cobwebbed ceiling of the underground room, their legs dangling in the air like those of helpless spiders.

  ‘Please,’ Phyllis implored, ‘let us down!’

  ‘Ouch!’ Clement’s head bumped against an oak beam. His glasses almost got knocked off, and he pushed them quickly back up his nose.

  The old man was pointing his long, bony finger at Phyllis and Clement, raising it and lowering it. Whenever he did, they would soar up and come down a few feet and then shoot upwards again, banging against the ceiling.

  In his other hand the man clutched the photograph of Alexander Sturdy.

  Phyllis flailed about. This was so different to being levitated by her great-grandfather in Venice. ‘Please, sir, we mean no harm!’ she cried.

  ‘You bring THIS with you’—the old man brandished the photo up at them—‘and you say to me you mean no HARM? Are you in cahoots with this vilest of villains? Are you in his employ?’

  ‘Oof!’ gasped Clement as he was bumped hard against the beams. ‘Hey, cut it out! Whaddya think we are, chandeliers?’

  The ancient man’s eyes twinkled at that. His whiskers—not a full beard, but bristly enough to cover his long face—splayed outwards as a faint smile manifested on his lips.

  At that moment, the huge rook swooped down the stairs. It glided through the room and came to perch on the old man’s shoulder.

  ‘Please,’ Phyllis implored again, raising her arm to shield her head from the ceiling, ‘please, Mr Myrddin, let us down?’ She tried to speak in a strong, confident way, but her voice was absorbed by something, and it came out muffled, as though she were speaking from far away.

  The rook opened its beak and delivered a harsh screech. ‘SCRAAAAAAAARKKKKKKKK!’

  At the sudden noise, another barrage of sound erupted, this time from inside Phyllis’s bag: ‘ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!’

  The old man spoke to the rook. ‘She knows my name, Corvus,’ he said to it, quietly.

  Corvus the rook blinked his flame-yellow eyes and clacked his beak loudly.

  ‘He is Myrddin,’ Clement whispered to Phyllis. ‘Oof!’

  ‘Please, great wizard,’ Phyllis pleaded. ‘Lower us. I’ve been searching for you . . . my great-grandfather has been searching for you . . . we mean you no harm . . .’

  When he heard mention of her great-grandfather, Myrddin took a long, hard look at Phyllis. There was something about her, something in her eyes and the shape of her mouth, that brought back to him a distant memory.

  Phyllis gazed down at him. Despite the bumping and dangling she was undergoing, she tried smiling.

  And the memory became immediate! Myrddin had seen that smile before, and he knew when and where!

  Clement collided with the oaken beam again. This time, his glasses did get knocked off and, as if in horrible slow-motion, they fell to the floor. With a dreadful crack they shattered against the hard wooden boards.

  ‘No!’ he shouted angrily. ‘They’re the only pair I’ve got with me!’

  Myrddin eyeballed Phyllis. ‘Tell me, what is your name?’

  ‘Phyllis,’ she gasped. ‘Phyllis Wong.’

  Myrddin’s expression changed, as if a shadow were beginning to lift from his face. He gave Phyllis a shrewd, guarded stare. Then he exclaimed, ‘Ez
caphanum!’

  What happened next took place swiftly: Myrddin lowered his finger and Phyllis and Clement plummeted towards the floor. Just when they were inches above it, holding out their hands to try to protect themselves, they stopped in the blink of an eye. They hung in the air, floating, and were able to step down—as though they were stepping down off an invisible step—onto the floorboards.

  The flames of the candles around the walls billowed at the sudden descent, but stayed lit.

  ‘Th . . . thank you,’ Phyllis stammered, and Clement scrabbled about, picking up the pieces of his shattered spectacles.

  ‘Phyllis Wong.’ Myrddin repeated her name, and Corvus’s eyes regarded her, slit-like, yellow, waiting.

  ‘And this,’ Phyllis said, ‘is my friend, Clem.’ She opened the top of her bag and Daisy sprang out. ‘And Daisy.’

  Daisy stood by Phyllis’s feet, watching the rook suspiciously.

  ‘Hound unbound,’ said Myrddin, observing Daisy.

  Clement had picked up the three separate pieces of his glasses—the frames had snapped apart and the right lens was shattered completely. ‘Hello,’ he said, frowning at Myrddin.

  ‘Such a thick be-whiskering for one so young,’ said Myrddin, squinting at Clement’s handlebar moustache.

  ‘Oh,’ said Clem. ‘I’m mature for my age.’

  Myrddin’s eyes twinkled. ‘Your roidi da ogli are broken, Master Whiskers.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The crystals for your eyes.’

  ‘He means your glasses,’ said Phyllis, her voice muffled by the atmosphere.

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ Clement was going red, and blinking heavily—he was upset about his specs. ‘I can’t see very well without these, and I didn’t bring my spares.’

  ‘Hold out the pieces,’ Myrddin commanded. His voice was deep, and flowed like a river in full current, not muffled like Phyllis’s or Clement’s. ‘All in one hand.’

  Clement looked at the bits of his glasses, then put them all into his left hand and extended it towards Myrddin.

  The old man reached into a pocket in his dark brown cloak and took out a long, willowy stick, thick at one end and tapering up to a twiggy finish. Phyllis watched carefully, her heart skipping a beat. This is his wand, she realised. The wand of Myrddin.