Billy gently cleared Dom’s throat, then spoke:
“Hear the voice of the Bard!
“Who Present, Past, & Future sees;
“Whose ears have heard
“The Holy Word
“That walk’d among the ancient trees!”
“That’s a poem,” whispered Dom, feeling the meter as Billy spoke it. “What’s it from?”
His shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. A distant memory, one that somehow felt right for the moment.”
“Well, if we get a chance, when we’re all done we’ll try and find it. Maybe it’s a clue as to who you really are.” Jenna grabbed Dom’s arm and pointed. A small animal was walking through the undergrowth, but at best Dom could only see a dim shadow as it moved, more aware of its progress by how the trees seemed to defer to it than by its actual presence. The last two trees seemed to bow down, blocking their view of whatever was approaching them.
Then Dom and Jenna slowly stepped forward, swept the weathered branches out of the way. “Jesus,” whispered Dom.
In front of them stood a badger, staring calmly into Dom’s eyes. Leaves on the trees trembled for a moment, even without a breeze, and then settled.
“This animal is a familiar for this part of your journey while in the land of Napier,” said Arithmos. “The numbers that live here are old, senile, and therefore ill-equipped to carry the memory of what has been placed here. And before we were placed in the package that went to America, we were given only enough information to take you to your first stop.”
“So this badger is to help us?” asked Billy.
“The numbers here may be ancient and tired,” replied Arithmos. “But they are more than enough to hide something if needed, completely unable to be enticed or forced to reveal that same item, or to work in any way with a numerate.”
“Ancient and tired?” Jenna knelt down and touched some numbers poking out from beneath the undergrowth. They made a feeble effort to slide away from her, but unlike other numbers couldn’t get away, and were all bent and warped in odd fashions.
As she did this, Dom again found himself looking through her eyes. Just as quickly, he was back in his own body, but before he could say anything, Arithmos spoke again.
“You might say they’re senile. A good numerate can still call upon them, but we doubt even Napier would be able to compel them to do what he wanted for more than a few seconds.”
“So how does the badger fit in?” asked Dom.
As if in answer, the animal walked past them and, with one glance over its shoulder to make sure they followed, picked a path through the raggedy ancient forest. Dom and Jenna both had to duck low many times, dodging limbs and lichens and pale numbers all.
After only two or three minutes they arrived at a copse of trees that, if anything, looked older than all the others. The badger nosed at the base of one tree, then sat back on its haunches.
“Your turn now, Dom,” said Arithmos.
Dom raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m supposed to sniff the tree?”
“Just touch it.” Arithmos said this with a hint of impatience. “That’s the tree the badger has picked out, so the next move is yours.”
Dom stepped around the unmoving badger and reached down, touched the same spot where the animal’s nose had touched. The trees all around shifted at the contact, and now as Dom looked up he saw the last shred of blue sky covered by green. The trees were no longer shrunken and low, instead stretched as high as they possibly could, creating a green vault with reaching, arthritic limbs. He could hear their groans as they did so, could see numbers the likes of which he’d never seen drifting from the branches and falling to the ground like a gentle shower of leaves in an autumn breeze.
The ground spoke then, a chorus from the roots of every tree around them, a cacophony of voices climbing into the air, most of them speaking languages or dialects unrecognizable to Dom. He jumped back and looked at Jenna, but she shrugged and shook her head, and in response Billy shook his head as well. Even the scraps of words he could make out as English did nothing to tell him what was happening, what was being said.
After no more than a minute, the voices quieted. Everything was still and silent for another few seconds, and then the tree Dom and the badger had both touched creaked and groaned, and with a grinding and popping noise, its trunk split in two, from the ground or below, reaching up almost four feet high. The bark peeled back first, followed by the rest of the tree, and Dom instantly jumped back with a yelp, landing on his butt with Jenna’s hand suddenly and painfully clutching his shoulder. Inside the darkness of the tree several pairs of eyes peered back out at him, curious, insistent and unblinking, reflecting green from the surrounding light, with just a hint of yellow flashing through for the briefest of moments. The weight of their gaze was heavy, but he couldn’t turn his eyes away, scared as he was right now.
The badger stepped forward then, burrowed its way into the open tree and came out with something in its jaws. The trunk stood open for a moment more, and then the attention of the eyes turned from Dom and was cast downward, and with more noise, rustling of leaves and snapping and clacking of wood, the tree sealed itself whole again. Dom felt himself relax, tense shoulders finally easing down, and sensed the entire forest do the same. Sunlight returned to dapple the leaves and ground, and the branches of the trees no longer seemed bent into unnatural positions.
The badger shuffled across fallen leaves and dropped the item from its jaws to the ground in front of Dom, and with one last glance back, turned and disappeared into the forest. With a look up at Jenna and Arithmos, Dom reached down and, thumb and one finger only, delicately picked up the item.
Whatever it was, it was covered in dirt and the detritus of generations’ worth of forest floor, even though it had quite plainly been stored inside the tree. Inside, something long and thin rattled. Dom went to wipe away the gunk as best he could, but Arithmos stopped him with the soft but firm touch of a numerical limb.
“It stays safe from Napier’s eye as long as it remains covered, so don’t clean or open it yet,” said the numbers. “Pocket it safely and keep it until we gather the other two parts.”
Dom tucked the cloth away as he stood up, and then he wiped off the seat of his pants. Jenna reached out and stopped him, then proceeded to slap the dirt off his rear. He smiled at her and said, “We have to do this two more times?”
“One is close by, one a little further. We’ll leave the wood now.”
Dom and Jenna stood still for a moment longer, just listening to the quiet of the wood. Finally, Billy said, “I suppose we should go.”
Jenna nodded her head, reached over and took Dom’s hand, and they walked back the way they’d come. Back on the road, Arithmos pointed up above their car. “Your next stop is the kirk.”
“Kirk?”
“Church,” said Billy. “Is that where the next package is?”
The numbers nodded. “We can’t go in; it’s consecrated territory, and we would dissipate before we set foot in the door, completely unable to retain this form. But there will be another familiar waiting for you inside.”
“Consecrated?” asked Dom.
“Not like you’d imagine. It’s a rite that uses numbers in order to keep certain other types of numbers out. Numbers that once upon a time were considered demons.”
“Like yourself?”
“Like myself.” With that, Arithmos faded from sight.
Dom looked at Jenna, and then with a shrug he walked along the road to the edge of the long driveway up to the church on the hill. Jenna kept pace beside him without saying anything. The doors to the church were locked, but as a symbol of everything that could possibly be different between this place and home, the key was in the lock and a small sign was on the door, welcoming visitors to the church and to view the stained glass windows, and asking that they lock the door again on their way out. Feeling bemused, Dom turned the key and in they walked.
It was an old stone church
, with three beautiful stained glass windows behind the pulpit, facing the road down below, and more stained glass windows on the two side walls. Unsure if he was looking for another badger or some other animal, Dom looked about the place, but there was no sign of any life.
“What do you suppose we’re looking for?” asked Billy.
Dom got down on hands and knees and looked underneath the pews. Nothing, not even a bug.
He stood up, hands on hips, wondering what to do next. From behind him came a soft wheezing sound, and he turned to see Jenna asleep already on one of the pews, head back and slumped to one side.
“Hell,” he whispered. “Now what?”
Billy shrugged Dom’s shoulders. “Have a seat, I guess. Arithmos told us the familiar would be here and present itself to us, so we wait. And I can feel it, you’re every bit as tired as Jenna.”
Dom nodded and eased himself into the pew in front of her and stared at the stained glass windows until they blurred and darkened.
17
The sound of a door slamming shut startled him awake. Lights came on overhead, and from around the corner came a small man wearing John Lennon glasses, grey hair in a U around the back of his head, mostly bald everywhere else. He wore casual beige slacks and shirt with a blue sport coat over top, and carried a green cloth bag over one shoulder. Even through the haze of interrupted sleep, Dom could see the man wasn’t surprised to find them here.
“It’s after midnight,” he said. “I imagine the cricks in your necks must be fierce painful by now.”
Dom leaned forward, rubbed at the back of his head and his neck, silently agreeing with the little man. He stretched and twisted, trying to pop out the kinks. “We shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” said Jenna. She sounded worried.
“Ah, but you did,” said the man. He set the bag down on the pew in front of her, pulled out a thermos and three scratched and pitted old plastic cups, poured coffee into one and handed it to her. “Cream and sugar are inside the bag,” he said, then poured another cup for Dom, who took it with a grateful nod. He shuffled out of the pew and got himself some cream and sugar, took a sip and felt the heat and caffeine work its way into his system. From the corner of his eye, Dom saw that Jenna pretended to sip from the cup, a gracious gesture, but then she let it rest on the pew beside her.
“My name’s Ewan Ivey,” the man said as he poured himself some coffee.
“Dom. And this is Jenna.”
“You’ve been to the Ballachuan Hazelwood.”
Dom spat the sip of coffee he’d just taken back into the cup, surprised. He sank down into his seat, and Jenna came over and sat beside him. “How do you know?”
Ewan looked around him. “The kirk told me,” he said. “Caught me way far away and on foot, it did, which is why it took me almost five hours to get here, as first I had to find an automobile.”
“The church told you,” said Dom, at the same time that Jenna asked, “We’ve been in here for five hours?”
Ewan nodded and took another sip. “I no longer live on the island,” he said, “nor do I pay much attention to the word of God anymore. But the land around the kirk and I keep a close bond, and things that happen in the Hazelwood have always been worth noting.”
“And so you came all the way back here, just because we’d been to the wood?” Something about all this didn’t seem right to Dom, but so far Ewan hadn’t made any overt moves against them, so he didn’t know just yet how far he should let this conversation go.
Ewan smiled. “Aye.”
“But why?” asked Jenna.
Ewan sat in a pew opposite them and watched Dom use his sleeve to wipe away a ring his coffee had made. “Most who are here or who have been here know nothing about what goes on in the wood below their kirk, and that has been for the best, I think most would agree.”
He leaned back in the pew, took another sip of coffee. After a moment to savour the taste, he said, “You’ve walked out of that wood with a package. The numbers that surround this building are no friend to Napier, but they are to me.”
Dom pushed the coffee cup away from him, regretting having taken a sip. “They made us sleepy,” said Billy.
Ewan grinned. “They just knew what you needed most that would keep you in place until I arrived. You needed to sleep, so you slept.”
Jenna looked to the door, then stood. “We have to go.”
Ewan shook his head. “First you have to give me what was given to you in the Hazelwood, and then you have to show me what you were to collect in here.” New numbers began to float up from Ewan, irrational numbers spinning themselves into a small, tight ball. Dom jumped, spilled his coffee over the pew in front of him, tried to squeeze by Jenna, at the same time reaching down to grasp the hockey puck and hoping to hell it would be enough to stop this guy. He felt himself rush across the floor, almost skating, and slammed into the little man, sending the ball spinning wildly out of control into a corner.
Ewan stood back up and looked around, then, not seeing Dom, turned his attention on Jenna. More numbers bubbled out of him, and a swarm of them rained down on her, pushing her back into her seat and pinning her there, even though Dom could see that most of them were missing their target. Once again Dom swung around and hit Ewan, wishing he had more knowledge of how to go on the offensive. He’d spent all his time learning how to be a sneak and how to defend himself, and until this puck had never had any mojo that took the fight to someone else. He hit Ewan again, watched the man look around in confusion, blood running from his nose. But again he stood, and this time he managed to spin up a new group of numbers and fling them in Dom’s general direction.
In panicked response, Dom threw up a wall of Euclidean space between the two of them. The numbers from Ewan quickly found themselves halving the distance between the two men with each second, but the number of halves had stretched out to infinity. As long as Dom could keep that wall up between them, any numbers thrown his way would find themselves lost in forever, even as they came close enough that he could feel their metaphoric breath on his face. But the longer Dom fought to keep Euclidean space open, the longer he would go without being able to pull down any other numbers; it was likely to be an exhausting stalemate. Just then the front doors banged open, and with a couple of flickers most of the lights shut off. A shaded blur rushed across the church and slammed into Ewan, who managed one explosive whoosh of breath before he crashed into the opposite wall and dropped to the floor, blood already pooling from the back of his head.
Dom let the numbers he’d been using dissipate, stood beneath the pulpit, breathing hard from the effort. The ram they’d seen down at the farm stood in front of him, and after one loud bleat, it turned and ran from the church.
Dom turned, saw the numbers still spinning in the corner, somehow still not vanishing now that their creator was dead or unconscious. He ran over, coaxed patterns out of the chaos, cast them away to dissolve as he managed to pull out each new set of numbers, watched as they flattened themselves, reintegrated, once again became commensurate, before finally rejoining the ecology, no longer a threat.
Done there, he walked back to Jenna, careful to step around the body on the floor—Ewan did indeed appear to be dead. She was sitting up, head turned to avoid looking at Ewan’s body. Her face and hands were covered with dozens of very fine cuts, each one still slowly seeping blood.
“How are you?” asked Dom.
Jenna didn’t answer, although she turned to look at him. The look in her eyes was vacant, lost. She opened her mouth and blood leaked out, a giant bubble of it, bursting and dribbling down her chin.
“Jesus!” Dom sprang back, then caught himself and jumped towards her, but she seemed to come back into herself and waved him off.
“Animal,” she managed to say, more blood spilling from her mouth.
“What, the ram?”
Jenna shook her head and pointed with a wavering finger at the ceiling.
Dom looked up, but in the ill-lit space of the church
he could see nothing. But with everything silent, he could hear it. A rustling, followed by a couple of echoing chirps.
“A bird,” said Billy. “It must be the familiar Arithmos told us about.”
Dom held out his hand, and with a lazy loop through the air a small bird, about the size of a sparrow but with a reddish breast and cheeks and blue-grey crown, fluttered down and landed on Dom’s finger. It pecked at his hand, two gentle taps at the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger, and then flew across the church, coming to rest on the floor in the corner behind the altar.
“I don’t suppose the stone is going to part as easily as the tree did,” said Dom, but when he got there he was surprised to see that indeed it had, one piece of stone bending inwards on itself and revealing another package, similar in size and shape to the other in his pocket. He picked it up and pocketed it beside the other, and the small bird immediately launched itself into the air to disappear into the shadows high above them.
“Let’s get out of here.” He went back to the pew and took Jenna’s hand, helped her stand. She still looked stunned, but followed him out of the church with no problem, stepping around the body on the floor without looking down. There was a second car on the road below, probably Ewan’s, and the cows and sheep at the farm across the road were kicking up a fuss, and lights had come on at both farms down the road.
Arithmos was waiting outside, about fifteen feet away from the door. “Get to the car as quickly as you can. We’ll soon have more company.”
Halfway down, Jenna stopped and leaned over, vomit and blood spilling out in the moonlight, splattering on the gravel and some splashing back onto their shoes and pants, taking heaving breaths that for a moment turned into sobs when she was done. Dom rubbed her on the back, and when she was done he helped her straighten back up and kept walking. “You okay?”
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