The old man didn’t reply. He stepped carefully around the spear as he lit the nine fat yellow candles, each pressed onto an iron spike at the end of a branch on the two wooden candelabras – four fat wicks to kindle on one side of the chair where Caz was sitting, five on the other. He took the opposite seat, in front of the image of the Goddess, before he answered. ‘The explanation was suited to the occasion.’
‘So what’s it all about?’ Caz demanded. ‘You don’t do anything by accident. I was meant to see this and you meant to come down here, once I had had a chance to take a good look around. What’s going on? What’s all this for?’
‘This is the Council Chamber where the Guardians of the Runes of the Deathless have gathered on the four cross-quarter days of every year since my grandfather initiated their order more than a hundred years ago.’
Caz lounged in the chair. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stretched out his legs, baiting the old man. ‘The Guardians of the Runes of the Deathless, eh? Don’t you think that was a bit premature, considering you’ve only just got the first one?’
Sir Jonas ignored the derision. ‘The first Guardians agreed on the title in anticipation of the day when the Runes of the Deathless would be won.’
‘So what’s it got to do with me?’
‘It has been agreed that I should invite you to join us in Council.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we feel that it would benefit you at this particular time.’
‘It would benefit me!’ Caz laughed and shook his head. ‘Since when have you done anything that didn’t ultimately benefit yourself more than anyone else?’
The old man kept his face averted, looking at the patterns in the flagstone floor. He remained silent.
Caz took the hint. ‘So what does this benefit involve? Do I have to go through some kind of weird ritual to get it, or what?’
‘No,’ Sir Jonas answered cautiously. ‘Only your discretion is counted upon, but then you have already proved yourself in that respect during the past two years.’
‘Why wasn’t I invited before?’
‘Primarily, in view of your age. Now that you are approaching your sixteenth birthday, it is considered more appropriate to invite you.’
‘More legal, you mean. So when’s the next meeting?’
‘On October 31st.’
‘When Daisy’s Mister Charles is supposed to show up?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who else?’
‘The individual identities of the Guardians are known only in Council.’
‘So the only way I’ll find out is if I show up too?’
Sir Jonas nodded. ‘In a word, yes.’
‘So what’s in it for me? What do I get out of it?’
‘Perhaps that depends upon what you are prepared to put in.’
‘I’d say I had already put in more than my fair share, wouldn’t you?’
Again the old man gave no answer.
Caz persisted. ‘Come on! Get to it! What’s the real deal?’
‘We can offer you the support and protection of a century-old organisation that has devoted all its energy towards exactly what was first achieved almost two years ago, and we hope will be achieved again.’
‘You couldn’t have done it without me.’
‘You couldn’t have done it without us,’ countered Sir Jonas.
‘True, but your Guardians can’t protect me from what goes on in those other worlds. You couldn’t.’
‘But we can do everything in our power to provide you with the best possible chance of survival, both in this world and within those other dimensions with which you have become familiar. We have not been idle this past hundred years, as you have already observed to no small degree.’
Caz had no problem with that. ‘You have put together some pretty amazing stuff,’ he agreed.
‘And I believe you would also agree that we have bred some rather extraordinary horses,’ said Sir Jonas.
‘If it hadn’t been for Kyri, I wouldn’t have made it back and neither would you.’ Caz gestured at the images around the walls. ‘They are nothing at all like the reality, are they? Wherever the spooks took us, it was like we were outside of time and inside the stars, all at the same moment. I thought it was a dream. Now everything about the life we have here seems like the illusion.’
The blue eye narrowed. ‘Well, of course I still have very little recollection of that,’ the old man replied huffily. ‘Apparently I had taken a severe axe-blow to the head quite early on, if you remember correctly.’
Caz nodded. ‘Yes, you had, and yet we want to go back. Some part of me just wishes I could ride Kyri far into forever and never see this shadow world again.’ He focused his attention once more on the walls. ‘So where are the big three runes supposed to go? Why didn’t you leave a space for them when you were doing everything else?’
Unexpectedly Sir Jonas threw his stick across the circle with surprising force and accuracy. Caz caught it in a lightning reflex.
‘Look down on the floor to your left!’ the old man commanded. ‘You only need apply the slightest pressure.’
The end of the stick fitted exactly into the shallow recess indicated by the tiny Rune of Tír stamped into the grey stone. To Caz’s amazement, the entire circular section in the middle of the floor began to drop away. It divided into two separate halves that slid silently out of sight to allow a second, equal-sized section to rise and lock into its place.
At once, the real need for this deeply buried, secret chamber became astoundingly evident. An outer circle of thirty-two, white marble flagstones enclosed a wide inner ring of gleaming black granite, at the centre of which a misted, sea-blue orb had been placed with exquisite skill to catch every particle of the available light. Set deep into the ink-dark stone, it appeared to glow with an inner fire of its own making. All but two of the smooth, white outer stones had been engraved with runes, embossed with lengths of hammered red gold and arranged according to their traditional order of Ætts. The first of the Runes of the Deathless was the most recently added. The flame-coloured gold gleamed in the candlelight. The two remaining stones completing the circle were blank. Caz’s question had been answered. The source of power had been revealed.
He nodded at the old man, his eyes shining. ‘What can I say? Of all the tricks you’ve got up your sleeve, this has to be the most impressive! It’s really amazing!’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Sir Jonas, gratified.
‘What’s that blue stone in the middle?’
‘I believe it is a form of aquamarine. It took my grandmother several years of searching, and at some considerable cost, to locate it. She always professed a particular sensitivity to the stone, more than most. The Guardians consider it to be sacred as representing the eye of the God.’
‘Can I touch it?’
Sir Jonas shook his head. ‘It is a privilege reserved exclusively for the Guardians, and then only when the Master has given them permission to cross the rune circle in order to do so.’
Caz sat forward in the chair, unable to take his eyes off the stone. The urge to lay his hands on its gleaming surface was almost more than he could bear. His fingers twitched. The scar on his hand was tingling. The great rune burned at the head of the weapon at his feet, although the old man appeared to be unaware if it. He wished that he would go back to the study and leave him alone in this incredible place. But he knew it would never happen, not until he had agreed to go along with whatever it would take to be accepted as a Guardian.
For once, his mentor wouldn’t be of any help. He knew Alan would steer clear of him while he decided what to do. The offer was seductive and almost impossible to refuse, as it was meant to be. There was much to be gained, but what else would have to be given up in the process?
CHAPTER 24
Sir Jonas sat upright and silent, his face a mask of apparent composure. Inside, he was seething, gagged and bound in the vice-like grip of jealousy and doubt.
The God wills, the Goddess nurtures, the Fate-Spinners decide – but why should they set this young upstart, this boy, above me? I am no ignoble get of a bastard line. The blood of a great lineage runs truly in my veins and yet I am set aside.
It suited him to think of the tall, muscular figure, catapulted prematurely into manhood, as a boy, an arrogant adolescent who was in dire need of being put firmly in his place. However highly he might be favoured, even the hand that hefted the spear was evidently not immune to the lure of the Guardians’ sacred stone. Let it do its work. Let him squirm with desire for it. Once they had him under oath he would have to come to heel, or be cast out.
The silence in the great chamber began to wear thin. Caz’s face was unreadable. Sir Jonas waited for him to speak. The question, when it came, was surprising.
‘Who do the runes favour ultimately? Do they go for the good guys or the bad guys?’
The old man swallowed his fury, clearing his throat and coughing before he could trust his voice to convey the required degree of authority.
‘I believe you already know the answer to that,’ he replied. ‘The runes are neither good nor evil and take no sides. Within their entirety lies every aspect of the human experience. There are few among us who are truly evil and few who could claim to be wholly good.’ He pointed out a handsome, diabolical face on the wall. ‘For example, Loki embodies all our human qualities. He is mischievous and a thief, and yet he is a sworn blood brother to the High One, worthy of the company of both gods and giants. He has been demonised in the later, Christian-oriented writings but he is not totally evil, he is not a devil.’
Caz shrugged. ‘Never mind that he was the direct cause of the death of Baldr.’
The irony was not lost on the old man. ‘In Loki we confront the extremes of human nature personified, where good and evil are essentially indistinguishable from one another. We are all capable of being our own worst enemy. When we turn the other cheek to avoid confronting what we know to be evil, it is hardly virtuous. History is littered with the results of such behaviour. Indeed, it could be argued that in so doing we are condoning evil rather than seeking to overcome it.’
‘But Loki’s a shape-changer. That’s not human.’
‘Isn’t it? We may not have the ability to so obviously change our physical appearance but we have many faces, yourself not the least.’
Good point, thought Caz, and which of my faces is the real one now, I wonder?
‘But I learned a long time ago that you can’t trust the good guys to save you,’ he said. ‘Everyone liked my dad but that didn’t stop him from dying, did it? We kept the Hag Night Vigil in good faith and I lost Bryn. It seems to me that the good guys have to pay to win and then they’ll only get what the bad guys decide to leave them.’
‘But the warriors of Valhall are not evil, Caspar. In life they were strong, brave souls who have been duly rewarded for their valour. We cannot blame them for being as they are. We summoned them as we summon all our life circumstances. We made the choice and we must accept the consequences of our choosing.’ He sounded patronising.
Caz immediately stiffened. ‘Don’t preach at me! I know all about consequences and accepting! None better! But I didn’t choose to get into this. You set me up. You’re probably setting me up again. How do I know?’
‘You were free to refuse!’ retorted Sir Jonas. ‘No one forced you to keep the vigil! That was your own idea!’
‘I had to save the horses!’
‘Only in your view! Nothing was predetermined. Have you considered that the warriors may have only appeared because you were there? Have you thought about that?’
‘They came because of Kyri!’
‘And why did she come? Long before you came here, didn’t you ever dream of riding the perfect horse?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Caz admitted. ‘But then I thought I’d found her when I first saw Bryn.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose if you wish for something long enough you get it in the end, even if it’s more than you bargained for.’
‘The slightest wish can have the greatest consequences,’ agreed the old man. ‘So what do you think about the latest edition to the white circle? In your opinion, has the rune been accurately portrayed?’
Caz studied the most recently engraved marble stone. The work could not be faulted. ‘You’ve got it exactly right, just as it is on the spear. But I don’t think about it, if you know what I mean. I think of it. I see it in my mind’s eye but I don’t feel it working. It’s just there.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
‘It doesn’t work alone,’ he said reluctantly. ‘And the other twenty-nine are not enough to get it going.’
‘Those are my thoughts exactly,’ replied Sir Jonas, doing his best to contain his glee at this unexpected authentication of his own and his grandfather’s deliberations on the matter. ‘I have concluded that the Runes of the Deathless work in conjunction, the one with the other. It is my own dearest wish that I live to see what they will reveal.’
‘And if you don’t? What happens to your precious order then?’
‘The work will continue. The Guardians will ensure that you are supported in every possible way to achieve the great culmination of a century of sacrifice and hard work.’
‘So if I come to your Council meeting, I will never have to be separated from Kyri or any of the other horses? Is that it?’
‘I guarantee that you will not.’
The bait was swallowed. The trap was sprung. Sir Jonas dared to congratulate himself on a good night’s work well done, although how this truculent young candidate would conduct himself in Council was anyone’s guess. But he must have confirmation of consent before they parted. ‘So will you be joining us here on the night of October 31st?’
Caz shrugged again. ‘I don’t see why not, but I hope you meet late.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s Hallowe’en and all the normal people I know will be partying that night.’
‘The Guardians are accustomed to keeping nocturnal hours.’
‘That’s good, because if I’m supposed to keep all this secret I had better show up at the party first. Unless you want Jas marching in here wanting to know where I am?’
The blue eye opened wide in horror. ‘Indeed not! We will be ready for you, whatever time you arrive.’
‘Then be prepared for a long wait.’
CHAPTER 25
Just after ten o’clock Lauren put on her make-up. She touched her wrists with perfume and sat on the window ledge in an agony of waiting… hugging her knees… watching the garden… watching the sky.
He’ll be here in one hour, she thought. This has to mean we’re bubbling now. But why won’t he call? Why won’t he get a cell-phone? Why can’t I see the moon?
They had been the last to leave the studio after lunchtime theatre group. Caz had turned on all the spotlights. ‘Stand centre stage, I need to try something.’
She had complained, blinded in the flat, white light. ‘I can’t see you.’
‘I’m here.’ He set up a sequence, circling white light into rose, into red, into purple, into blue around the stage. Silvery beams caught in her bright hair and played over the white silk shawl she had tucked into the waistband of her skirt. He came forward and sat in the front row, studying the effect. ‘Walk around.’
‘I’d rather dance.’
‘If you want.’
She kicked off her shoes and raised her hands above her head, moving in a slow, sensuous rhythm unconsciously timed to her heartbeat.
‘I never see you in the evenings,’ she said.
‘I only operate at night.’
‘What time of night?’
‘After eleven o’clock.’
She unwrapped the shawl, throwing and catching it, spinning it around herself as she made a perfect pirouette, aware of him watching her. ‘So where shall it be? Your place or mine?’
‘Where do you live?’
She told him. ‘Is t
hat far?’
‘It’s near enough.’
She felt her heart bump in her chest. ‘When will you come?’
He went back to the console. The lights spun lavender into green, into ethereal blue. ‘I’ll come tomorrow night. There are some woods near your house. They are beautiful after midnight. We could walk.’
‘What if it rains?’
‘You won’t get wet.’
She danced to the edge of the stage, trailing the shawl behind her, and curtsied deeply, looking up at him. ‘But I vowed I wouldn’t sizzle until my sixteenth birthday. Does that change anything?’
‘No.’ He moved away from the console. For a moment he seemed to have vanished and then she saw that he had returned to his seat at the front of the auditorium.
‘It’s only until the end of the month,’ she said. ‘I want it to be special.’
He waved his hand. ‘Keep moving.’
She picked up the shawl. ‘You don’t mind?’
‘Terrible fate-bonds bind the oath-tearer,’ he replied. It sounded like a quote.
‘Is that some of your poetry?’
‘Not mine. Someone else wrote it about a thousand years ago, but it’s still true. You’ll break no vow because of me, you can be sure of that.’
He watched her dancing under the lights, drawn into the spell of her movements, and yet there was still that indefinable something about her that put him on his guard. He barely thought about her when they were apart. It was as though she had no real existence in his world – until they came together again, and he found himself entranced by her beauty, by the softness of her pale skin in the magic moments when she pressed herself against him, putting her arms around his neck and looking up at him, her eyes an arresting silver-blue. In those magical, dangerous moments, she was all he wanted her to be. He relished the wildness he saw in her, equally beautiful and horrible.
‘Have you made any vows?’ she asked.
‘We all make vows in one way or another. It’s when we forget to honour them the problems begin.’
‘What problems?’
‘Life problems. People want to be happy but they mostly complain even when they think. Their heads are full of what happened yesterday or what’s going to happen tomorrow. When they get around to thinking about today, it’s often negative.’
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